People who have had Covid-19 are at higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease, and it can happen a year after infection, according to an analysis of US health data by Washington University researchers.
Senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, an assistant professor at Washington University’s School of Medicine in St Louis, said governments and health systems should be prepared to deal with “the likely significant contribution” of the Covid-19 pandemic to a rise in cardiovascular disease. The study did not give details of which coronavirus variants people were infected with or how many had been vaccinated, but vaccines were not widely available in the period and the Delta and Omicron strains had yet to emerge.
They said the risk was also evident among those who had not been hospitalised during the acute phase of the disease – a group representing the majority of people who have had Covid-19. And the risk increased according to the severity spectrum of Covid-19 they experienced, from non-hospitalisation to hospitalisation and intensive care.