United States: A surprising report revealed that the flu is more likely to cause neurological disorders than is caused by COVID.
Flu and COVID patients were examined in study
The co-author of the study, Dr. Brian Callaghan of the University of Michigan Health in Ann Arbor, said, “While the results were not what we expected to find, they are reassuring in that we found being hospitalized with COVID did not lead to more care for common neurological conditions when compared to being hospitalized with influenza,” as US News reported.
The findings of the study are published in the online website Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology on March 20.
The shocking revelation was came to light when the results of the findings were analzyed by examining patients who were hospitalized after getting infected with either COVID or influenza.
However, the researchers did not include long COVID symptoms in the study.
How was the study conducted?
For the study, researchers took medical claims records in order to compare more than 77,000 people who were hospitalized for COVID. The same number of people who had been hospitalized with flu were examined.
Further, they took notice of how many were treated during the year, which
followed for any apparent commonly held neurological disorders such as – migraine, epilepsy, stroke, neuropathy, movement disorders, and dementia.
The findings of the study in detail
Overall, about 3,2 percent of those who had flu and 2 percent of those who had COVID were given treatment for migraine. However, about 2.1 percent of flu patients and 1.6 percent of COVID patients were given epilepsy medical treatment.
Furthermore, about 2.4 percent of those having flu were given treatment for stroke, as compared to 2 percent of those who were COVID-afflicted, 3.6 percent of flu patients, and 1.9 percent of COVID sufferers were given a cure for neuropathy, and about 2.5 percent of flu patients, along with 1.5 percent of COVID patients were given treatment for movement disorder.
Moreover, the cases of dementia were the same as those of two viral infections, which include 2.3 percent of flu patients along with 2 percent of COVID patients who got care for the condition.
It was found that COVID-affected patients had a 44 percent lower risk of getting neuropathy, which goes about 36 percent lower risk of movement disorders, a 10 percent decrease in risk of getting a stroke, and a 7 percent lesser risk for dementia.
Overall, about 4.9 percent of flu patients and not less than 2.8 percent of COVID patients had developed new neurologic conditions in the year following the condition.
COVID is behaving similarly to other respiratory viruses – Study
The study’s co-author, an associate professor of neurology at Yale University in New Haven, Conn, Dr. Adam de Havenon, said, “Since COVID-19 has now infected the majority of adults in the US, it’s good news that it behaves similarly to other respiratory viruses with respect to these common neurologic conditions,” as US News reported.
He added, “There was concern that the already limited access to neurologic care would further shrink if we had a dramatic increase in neurologic care after COVID-19 infection,” as US News reported.