Post COVID-19 condition of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2

Objectives

To investigate the prevalence of post coronavirus disease (COVID-19) condition of the Omicron variant in comparison to other strains.

Study design

A single-center cross-sectional study.

Methods

Patients who recovered from Omicron COVID-19 infection (Omicron group) were interviewed via telephone, and patients infected with other strains (control group) were surveyed via a self-reporting questionnaire. Data on patients’ characteristics, information regarding the acute-phase COVID-19, as well as presence and duration of COVID-19-related symptoms were obtained. Post COVID-19 condition in this study was defined as a symptom that lasted for at least 2 months, within 3 months of COVID-19 onset. We investigated and compared the prevalence of post COVID-19 condition in both groups after performing propensity score matching.

Results

We conducted interviews for 53 out of 128 patients with Omicron and obtained 502 responses in the control group. After matching cases with controls, 18 patients from both groups had improved covariate balance of the factors: older adult, female sex, obesity, and vaccination status. There were no significant differences in the prevalence of each post COVID-19 condition between the two groups. The number of patients with at least one post COVID-19 condition in the Omicron and control groups were 1 (5.6%) and 10 (55.6%) (p = 0.003), respectively.

Conclusions

The prevalence of post Omicron COVID-19 conditions was less than that of the other strains. Further research with a larger sample size is needed to investigate the precise epidemiology of post COVID-19 condition of Omicron, and its impact on health-related quality of life and social productivity.

[A case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease exhibiting athetosis in the early stage]

A 68-year-old man was hospitalized on 24 June, 1998 because of visual and gait disturbance. A month before admission, he had been aware of blurred or double vision while watching TV. A few days later, he developed dysphagia and clumsiness in the fingers. His gait became unstable and he exhibited restless finger movements. His shoulders and trunk showed torsion while walking. On admission, he became disoriented and showed rigidity in the legs and athetosis in the bilateral fingers. Routine laboratory findings, thyroid function data, and the serum levels of vitamin B1, B12, Cu, and ceruloplasmin were within the normal ranges. Periodic synchronous discharges (PSD) were observed on electroencephalography. MRI showed T2-high intensity and atrophy of the bilateral caudate nucleus and putamen in addition to the cerebral cortex. 99mTc-ECD-SPECT showed a decrease of local blood flow in the bilateral frontal, right temporal, and bilateral parietal lobes and bilateral thalami. Athetosis became exacerbated and was observed for a month, overlapping with myoclonus. We diagnosed the patient as having CJD because of progressive dementia, myoclonus and PSD. Analysis of the prion protein revealed that codon 129 was Met/Met and codon 219 Glu/Glu by DNA sequences. The patient developed akinetic mutism and rigid contracture, and died of pneumonia on 5 September, 1998. Because athetosis is thought to involve the bilateral caudate nucleus, putamen and thalamus, the findings of diagnostic imaging in this patient might be relative to the clinical symptoms.