Researcher: COVID-19 Affects Mental, Antibodies Protect Re-infection For Up To 10 Months

JAKARTA - COVID-19's impact on mental health is normal and affects the brain in a variety of ways, including fatigue and depression, especially in mild cases, according to new research.

Of the 215 studies of people infected with COVID-19, the symptoms reported following include loss of smell or anosmia (43%), followed by weakness (40%), fatigue (38%), loss of taste (37%), muscle aches. (25%), depression (23%), headaches (21%), and anxiety (16%).

This study came from 30 countries involving a total of 105.638 people with acute symptoms of the coronavirus, including data up to July 2020.

"We had expected that neurological and psychiatric symptoms would be more common in severe cases of COVID-19. But instead, we found that some symptoms appeared to be more common in mild cases", said study lead author Dr. Jonathan Rogers, from UCL Psychiatry and South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust such as cited from Sky Friday 4 June.

"It seems that COVID-19 affecting mental health and the brain is normal, not an exception".

Meanwhile, a separate new study shows that previous COVID-19 infection reduces the risk of contracting it again by up to 10 months. The researchers looked at the rate of COVID-19 infection between October and February among more than 2.000 nursing home residents and staff.

Researchers compared those who had evidence of the previous infection up to 10 months earlier, as determined by antibody tests, with people who had not previously been exposed to the virus.

Nursing home residents with previous infections were 85 percent less likely to catch the virus again between October last year and February this year than residents who had never been infected, researchers found.

And staff who contracted the virus previously were 60 percent less likely than staff who had never been infected before, the study said.

The findings showed strong protection in both groups, but the researchers cautioned that the two percentages may not be directly comparable, as staff may have accessed testing outside the hospice, leading to a positive test not being included in the study.

"It's really good news that natural infection protects against reinfection in this time period. The risk of getting infected twice seems very low", said study lead author Dr. Maria Krutikov of the UCL Institute of Health Informatics.

"The fact that previous COVID-19 infection provided a high level of protection to nursing home residents is also reassuring, given past concerns that these individuals may have a less robust immune response associated with increasing age", he concluded.