Skip to main content

COVID Hospital Patients Face Increased Risk Of Death For 2+ Years Afterward

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on Feb 28, 2025.

via HealthDay

FRIDAY, Feb. 28, 2025 People hospitalized for a severe bout of COVID-19 are far from in the clear after they've recovered enough to return home, a new study says.

COVID hospital patients have an increased risk of death from any cause for at least two and a half years following their initial illness, researchers reported in a new study published in the journal Infectious Diseases.

They also are more likely to be hospitalized again, with particularly high risk for neurological, psychiatric, heart and lung problems, researchers found.

“These findings are a stark reminder of the far-reaching impact of COVID-19, which extends far beyond the initial infection,” lead researcher Dr. Sarah Tubiana, an infectious disease specialist at Bichat Hospital in Paris, said in a news release.

“While much attention has been given to the immediate dangers of the virus, our research shows that hospitalized COVID-19 survivors remain at greater risks of severe health complications months and even years later,” Tubiana said. “The long-term implications for public health are significant.”

For the study, researchers followed nearly 64,000 French adults admitted to a hospital with COVID between January 2020 and August 2020.

The team compared their health with nearly 320,000 other people matched for age, sex and location who had not been hospitalized for COVID during the same period.

During follow-up for up to 30 months, researchers found that hospitalized COVID survivors had a higher rate of deaths from any cause -- 5,218 deaths for every 100,000 person-years, compared with 4,013 deaths among the healthy control group.

Person-years is a statistical measure of the number of people considered in a study, as well as the amount of time they were followed.

COVID survivors also landed in the hospital again more frequently, with 16,334 hospitalizations per 100,000 person-years compared with 12,024 hospitalizations among the control group.

COVID patients specifically were twice as likely to be hospitalized again for respiratory problems, researchers found. They also were 15% more likely to be hospitalized for heart problems, 41% more likely for psychiatric problems and 50% more likely for neurological disorders.

These excess risks decreased after the first six months following hospitalization, but remained elevated for up to 30 months for neurological and respiratory illnesses, chronic kidney failure and diabetes, results show.

“Even 30 months after hospitalization, COVID-19 patients remained at an increased risk of death or severe health complications, reflecting the long-lasting, wider consequences of the disease on people’s lives,” senior researcher Dr. Charles Burdet, an infectious diseases specialist at Université Paris Cité, said in a news release.

“These results highlight the need for further research to understand the mechanisms behind these long-term health risks and how to mitigate them,” he added.

COVID is known to damage organs and systems throughout the body, particularly during severe, life-threatening infections, researchers noted.

However, researchers added that these risks might not fully apply to people who’ve more recently been hospitalized with COVID, as the study focused on patients infected before new variants of the coronavirus emerged.

Sources

  • Taylor & Francis, news release, Feb. 28, 2025
  • Infectious Diseases, Feb. 28, 2025

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Read this next

Ex-Vaccine Panelist Speaks Out on Firing, New Committee

Thursday, June 26, 2025 — The federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has been soberly and deliberately helping set U.S. vaccination policy for more than...

Senate Grills CDC Nominee Susan Monarez on Agency Cuts

THURSDAY, June 26, 2025 —  The woman tapped to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says she supports science, vaccines and public health...

NIH Stops Canceling Research Grants Following Court Ruling

THURSDAY, June 26, 2025 — The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has stopped canceling biomedical research grants after a federal judge said hundreds of those cuts were...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.