MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lingering symptoms of Covid-19 detected among 20% of Brazilians

Epicovid 2.0 was conducted across 133 Brazilian cities

Brazil's Health Ministry detected lingering symptoms among 20% of South America's largest country's population having had Covid-19, Agencia Brasil reported. Among the symptoms are fatigue, memory loss, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, joint pain, and hair loss, which have also been found to be more frequent among women and indigenous people.

The study is entitled Epicovid 2.0: Inquérito nacional para avaliação da real dimensão da pandemia de Covid-19 no Brasil (“Epicovid 2.0: National survey to assess the real scale of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil”) released last week showed that over 28% (or some 60 million people) have been infected by the disease.

Of all respondents, 90.2% had received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, while 84.6% completed the two-dose scheme. Vaccination was higher in the Southeast, among the elderly, women, and people with a university degree and higher income. A total of 57.6% of those interviewed said they trusted the vaccine but 27.3% had second thoughts. Another 15.1% said they were not concerned.

Of those who had not been vaccinated, 32.4% said they did not believe in the vaccine, and 0.5% did not believe in the existence of the virus. Another 31% stated the vaccine could harm their health; 2.5% reported already having caught Covid-19, and 1.7% mentioned other health problems.

Epicovid 2.0 was conducted across 133 Brazilian cities, with a sample of 33,250 interviews. The respondents were selected at random, with only one person per household answering the questionnaire.

Coordinated by the Health Ministry, the research was carried out by the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), in cooperation with the Catholic University of Pelotas (UCPel), the Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), and the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV).