The patients with PAC had lower diversity and richness of bacteria, on admission to hospital and at a six-month faecal analysis, when compared patients who didn’t have COVID and those who had fully recovered, the study says.
The long COVID patients had fewer ‘friendly’ bacteria and more ‘unfriendly’ bacteria than COVID-19-free people, the researchers say.
Researchers also identified bacterial species linked to specific long-COVID symptoms. For example, respiratory symptoms were linked with ‘unfriendly’ microbes, including Streptococcus anginosus, Streptococcus vestibularis, Streptococcus gordonii and Clostridium disporicum.