More than two thirds of young people with long Covid recover within two years, say UK researchers who carried out the largest study to date including 11-17-year-olds.
But some groups appear more at risk than others of longer-term problems, including those living in the most deprived areas, the study found.
Young people aged between 11 and 17 years who were diagnosed with Covid by PCR test and had reported symptoms of long Covid were followed up at three, six, 12 and 24 months by a team led by University College London.
Analysis of data from 943 teenagers who’d had confirmed Covid found that 233 of them met the researchers definition of long Covid three months later.
At six months,135 continued to meet the criteria for long Covid. At 12 months this had dropped to 94. By 24 months, there were 68 children and teenagers who were still impacted by the condition.
It means of those who had long Covid at three months, 70% had recovered and 30% were still reporting symptoms, the researchers wrote in Nature Communications Medicine.
The team which included researchers from the UK Health Security Agency, found that older teenagers and those who were most deprived were less likely to have recovered.
It also showed that females were almost twice as likely to still meet the research definition of long Covid at 24 months, compared to males.
To meet the definition for long Covid participants had to report at least one symptom such as tiredness, trouble sleeping, shortness of breath or headaches alongside problems with either mobility, self-care, doing usual activities, having pain or discomfort, or feeling very worried or sad. No one in the study had been ill enough when they had Covid to be admitted to hospital.
The team did not assess menstruation so symptoms such as headaches and tiredness may be attributable to pre-menstrual syndrome, they noted.
In addition, the original PCR tests were taken before the Delta and Omicron variants became dominant, so the findings may not reflect the long-term effects of these variants.
Study leader Professor Sir Terence Stephenson, said: ‘Our findings show that for teenagers who fulfilled our research definition of long Covid three months after a positive test for the Covid virus, the majority have recovered after two years.
‘This is good news, but we intend to do further research to try to better understand why 68 teenagers had not recovered.’
Experts said the findings mirrored what had been seen in adults, including females being at higher risk of long Covid and deprivation being a key risk factor.
Dr Nathan Cheetham, senior postdoctoral data scientist in the Department of Twin Research at King’s College London, said: ‘The higher likelihood of long COVID among children and young people in England’s most deprived neighbourhoods’ echoes similar trends seen among adults in previous research.
‘The trends in long Covid by deprivation in the study were also seen whether or not the young person’s first infection was before or after the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccinations.’
He added: ‘These results reinforce the need to address the underlying causes of ill health, such as poor housing conditions, financial stress and unequal access to health care services, if we want to shift focus towards preventing illness before inequalities such as those found in this study arise.’
It comes as the eligible cohorts for vaccination under the 2025 Covid-19 programme have been confirmed following recommendations from government advisors.
In a letter, NHS England announced the spring programme will cover: adults aged 75 years and over; residents in care homes for older adults; and individuals aged six months and over who are immunosuppressed.
This comes after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said both the spring and autumn Covid vaccine campaigns in 2025 should be narrowed as the disease becomes endemic.
A smaller cohort had also been eligible in spring 2024.
This autumn, Covid vaccines were available for free for those aged 65 to 75 years and those who were previously deemed to be in a clinical risk group, however this will not be the case in spring 2025.
The latest JCVI update also advised that it was highly unlikely that vaccination in pregnancy would be cost-effective, saying there had been no deaths in people who were pregnant in the past 18 months.
NHS England’s letter, sent on Friday, said vaccination for all eligible cohorts should begin from 1 April 2025 and that priority should be given to older adult care homes and eligible housebound patients.
The campaign end date will be 17 June 2025.
A version of this story was first published on our sister title Pulse and The Pharmacist.
