They are developing a blood test that can predict who will develop long COVID syndrome

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The researchers said that if their findings are confirmed, then a new predictive blood test for long-term Covid-19 could be developed alongside the molecular diagnostic test.

Scientists in Britain have announced that they are developing one blood test which, if done during the initial coronavirus infection, can predict which person is more likely to later develop long-term symptoms of the disease, a condition better known as “long-Covid-19” or “post-Covid syndrome”.

University College London (UCL) researchers, led by Dr. Gabi Kaptur, who made the relevant publication in the medical journal “ebioMedicine”, analyzed – by means of mass spectrometry – proteins in the blood of 54 healthcare workers who were infected with coronavirus and compared them with blood samples from 102 of their colleagues who never had Covid-19.

The study found dramatic differences in the levels of some proteins up to six weeks after the initial infection. Using an artificial intelligence (machine learning) algorithm, they identified a “signature” in these elevated proteins that successfully predicts (only 6% error rate) whether a patient will subsequently develop persistent multi-month symptoms of Covid-19, even one year after the initial diagnosis of the disease. The researchers said that if their findings are confirmed by a larger study in patients, then a new predictive blood test for long-term Covid-19 could be developed alongside the molecular diagnostic test (PCR).

Kaptur emphasized that “as our study shows, even mild or asymptomatic Covid-19 disrupts the ‘profile’ of proteins in our blood plasma. This means that even mild disease affects normal biological processes dramatically for at least six weeks after infection. A test that will predict long-term Covid-19 from the moment of initial infection can be developed quickly and cheaply. Our method can analyze thousands of samples in an afternoon.”

Researcher Dr Wendy Haywood, of UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: “If we can identify people who are likely to have long-term Covid, then it opens the way to testing treatments, such as antiviral drugs, at an earlier and earlier stage of the infection, in order to see if it is possible to reduce the risk of a subsequent long Covid”.

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