HIV and inflammatory markers are associated with persistent COVID‐19 symptoms

BACKGROUND: A proportion of COVID19 survivors may present with long‐COVID, which is persistent symptoms lasting four or more weeks post SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. These symptoms may be mild to severe, and may affect different organ‐systems of the body. AIMS: The main objective of this study was to determine the demographic, clinical and immunological factors associated with long COVID. MATERIALS & METHODS: We conducted a nested case control study, with a total of 94 study participants initially included, and 64 participants matched for age and sex for biomarker analyses. RESULTS: 32/94 (34.1%) of all the participants had long COVID. Respiratory symptoms were the most common (59.5%) followed by the musculoskeletal symptoms (28.1%). HIV was an independent predictor of long COVID (adjusted odds ratio = 2.7; p = .037). In all the 64 matched cases and controls, IFN‐β was significantly higher among controls than cases. After stratifying by HIV, IL6 was significantly higher among cases than controls in the HIV‐ group (2.06 vs. 0.81 pg/mL; p = .02). On the other hand, IFN‐β was significantly higher among controls than cases in the HIV+ group (251 vs. 0 pg/mL; p = .01). CONCLUSION: HIV infection is a risk factor for long COVID, and inflammatory markers associated with long COVID may be slightly different for HIV− and HIV+ individuals.