A new study shows that in rare cases of breakthrough infections, fully vaccinated people are less likely to have long-term side effects from COVID-19. The study, which was published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, found that the risk of developing lingering symptoms of COVID-19 was cut in half for patients who were fully vaccinated.
"We found that the odds of having symptoms for 28 days or more after post-vaccination infection were approximately halved by having two vaccine doses. This result suggests that the risk of long COVID is reduced in individuals who have received double vaccination when additionally considering the already documented reduced risk of infection overall," the researchers wrote.
Scientists are still learning about what is known as long COVID. While most people recover from COVID after several weeks, some patients have reported debilitating symptoms that last for months.
"Long COVID is explored in this study by assessing the proportion of cases with symptoms persisting for more than 28 days. However long COVID is still poorly understood, and the persistence of symptoms post-infection, and their severity, remains to be explored," Penny Ward, a visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King's College London, said in a statement.
Ward said that the study provides more evidence that vaccines are safe and effective at combatting the coronavirus pandemic.
It is, however, encouraging that the overall proportion of cases with persistent symptoms is reduced in patients that were previously fully vaccinated, which taken together with the milder overall illness and reduction in need for hospital care, demonstrates the additional worth of vaccination in reducing severity of illness for individuals and reducing the burden on the NHS by lowering the number of people needing hospital care.