Prevalence and Predictors of COVID-19 Long-Term Symptoms: A Cohort Study from the Amazon Basin.

It remains unclear whether a previous history of tropical infectious diseases and a second SARS-COV-2 infection may influence the likelihood of later symptoms. In this prospective cohort study, individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 were followed up by telephone shortly after diagnosis of COVID-19 and again 12 months later. Poisson regression was used to identify the predictors of the highest number of symptoms in the post-COVID-19 syndrome. A total of 1,371 patients with COVID-19, with a mean age of 39.7 ± 11.7 years and 50% female, were followed for 12 months. Reinfection was found in 32 (2.3%) participants, and 806 (58.8%) individuals reported a previous history of dengue, malaria, Zika, chikungunya, leprosy, and visceral leishmaniasis. Eight hundred seventy-seven (63.9%) participants reported late symptoms related to COVID-19. After adjusting for multiple factors, female sex, non-White race, number of acute-phase symptoms, body mass index, and reinfection were independent predictors of higher number of symptoms in post-COVID-19 syndrome. Female sex, non-White race, number of acute-phase symptoms, body mass index, and reinfection, but not previous endemic tropical diseases, were associated with long-term symptoms.

An evidence and reasoning based differential diagnosis of a case of leprosy reinfection from reaction and relapse.

Leprosy is caused by Mycobacterium leprae (M. leprae) and is unique in terms of the chronicity of the disease and its prolonged treatment protocol. Even after the introduction of multidrug therapy (MDT) by World health organization (WHO), large numbers of new cases (nearly 200,000) of leprosy are reported yearly, indicating active transmission, especially in developing countries. Recurrent clinical manifestations after MDT can occur due to leprosy reactions, relapse or reinfection. It is very difficult to differentiate reaction, relapse and reinfection. Here we categorized a recent case of reoccurrence of leprosy as reinfection by differentiating it from reaction and relapse based on evidence and by analysing the clinical data of the patient.