A new publication, published on 4th of September by the EuCARE partners Pontus Hedberg and Pontus Nauclér from Karoliska Institute, shows a reduced risk of acquiring Post-COVID Condition (PCC) after a primary infection with omicron variant when compared to older variants.
In this report, there were 215,279 individuals in the omicron cohort, 52,182 in the delta cohort, 97,978 in the alpha cohort, and 107,920 in the wild-type cohort.
Results indicated that 0.2% of individuals with prior infection with omicron variant had a PCC diagnosis, while for individuals with prior infection with delta, alpha and wild-type variants, 0.5%; 1.0% and 1.3% of individuals had a PCC diagnosis, respectively.
The report also found that the risk of having PCC diagnosis increased with the severity of the acute infection.
The report states that: “Potential reasons for a reduced risk of PCC after infections caused by omicron might be differences in the intrinsic properties of different SARS-CoV-2 variants to cause long term health problems, as well as differences in vaccination coverage and population immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus”
One of the strengths highlighted was “(…) the study period covered a period when the PCC diagnosis was used and public testing was available in Sweden, reducing the risk of differential SARS-CoV-2 testing practices and usage of the PCC diagnosis”
To read the full report go to: https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiad382/7259851