Early report on the severity of COVID‐19 in hematologic patients infected with the SARS‐CoV2 omicron variant

Abstract

Introduction Patients with hematologic disease are at high risk of morbidity and mortality from COVID‐19 due to disease‐inherent and therapy‐related immunodeficiency. Whether infection with the SARS‐CoV2 omicron variant leads to attenuated disease severity in these patients is currently unknown. Methods We assessed clinical and laboratory parameters in 61 patients with underlying hematologic conditions with a SARS‐CoV2 omicron variant infection confirmed by nucleic acid amplification testing. Results Fifty patients reported symptoms of COVID‐19, most commonly fatigue (37 patients, 60.66%) and cough (32 patients, 52.46%). 39.34% of patients reported fever. Dyspnea was reported by 10 patients and 7 patients (11.48%) required oxygen therapy. Anosmia and ageusia were relatively rare, occurring in less than 10% of patients. Severity of SARS‐CoV2 infection could be assessed in 60 patients. Five cases of critical illness leading to ICU admission occurred during the observation period. Overall mortality was 9.84% in this patient cohort, with heterogeneous causes of death. The majority of omicron‐infected hematologic patients experienced mild symptoms or remained asymptomatic. Discussion In this study, symptoms of COVID‐19 tended to be milder than described for previous SARS‐CoV2 variants. However, the extent to which attenuated severity of omicron‐variant SARS‐CoV2 infection is caused by altered viral pathogenicity or pre‐existing host immunity cannot be inferred from our data and should be investigated in larger prospective studies.

Cardiovascular, Pulmonary, and Neuropsychiatric Short- and Long-Term Complications of COVID-19

“…At the beginning of the year 2022, the Omicron variant became the predominant cause of the disease [ 130 ]. Infection with the Omicron variant caused milder disease with much fewer need for hospitalization [ 131 , 132 ]. There were less frequent lower respiratory tract infections caused by the Omicron variant and thus less frequent severe forms of the disease were observed [ 133 ].…”

Prevalence of Olfactory Dysfunction with the Omicron Variant of SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…While some studies indicate that a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection may reduce the likelihood of olfactory dysfunction in a subsequent COVID infection [51], it is known that a previous COVID infection with an earlier variant does not necessarily prevent a second loss of smell when the same individual subsequently becomes infected with a different SARS-CoV-2 variant [134,135]. It also does not seem that vaccinations reliably prevent the occurrence of loss of smell in break-through infections [9,52,88,136].…”

“…2). Twenty-two studies were from populations primarily of European ancestry [8,32,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59], eight studies on East Asians [60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67], three studies on South Asians [68][69][70], three studies on Latinos [71][72][73], four studies on populations in Africa [74][75][76][77], and one study from West Asia (Turkey [78]). The location of studies, with the prevalence indicated by the color intensity, and the cohort size indicated by the size of the circles, shows that Western countries report the highest prevalence, while studies from East Asia and Africa report the lowest prevalence (Fig.…”

Sociodemographic inequity in COVID-19 vaccine uptake among youth in Zimbabwe

“…By February 2023, more than 750 million SARS-CoV2 infections and 6.8 million COVID-19 associated deaths had been reported globally [1]. The development of vaccines against SARS-CoV2, which primarily protect against severe disease, has however greatly reduced both COVID-19-related mortality and morbidity [2,3]. Global vaccination programmes were fast-tracked under the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative at the beginning of 2021 [4].…”