New research finds COVID-19 vaccination prior to infection does not affect the neurological symptoms of long COVID

CHICAGO – Jan. 7, 2025 – COVID-19 vaccinations have protected people from severe complications, hospitalizations and death, but their impact on long COVID has been unknown.

According to new research published in Brain Communications, Northwestern Medicine researchers found that vaccination prior to COVID-19 infection did not significantly affect neurological symptoms in long COVID patients, both in patients who had a severe infection that required hospitalization and those with a mild infection who did not require hospitalization. Common neurological symptoms of long COVID include brain fog, numbness and tingling, headache, dizziness, problems with smell and taste and intense fatigue.

“Since COVID-19 vaccines reduce the severity of the infections, we hypothesized that vaccines may also affect the neurological manifestations of subsequent long COVID,” said Igor Koralnik, MD, chief of neuroinfectious diseases and global neurology at Northwestern Medicine, who oversees the Neuro COVID-19 Clinic and is the co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive COVID-19 Center. “We aimed to identify what effects – if any – vaccination prior to infection has on neurological symptoms of long COVID, as well as the quality of life and cognitive function of our patients. These findings are sobering since it shows that vaccination prior to infection does not reduce the neurological manifestations of long COVID.”

STUDY HIGHLIGHTS

·       The study included the first 1,300 patients at the Northwestern Medicine Neuro COVID-19 Clinic with neurologic long COVID symptoms between May 2020 and March 2023.

·       Among those patients, 200 had been previously hospitalized for severe COVID-19, while the rest had mild initial COVID symptoms and never required hospitalization.

·       The study is a first-of-its-kind at Northwestern Medicine looking at whether vaccination prior to infection affects neurological symptoms of long COVID.

·       The study used quantitative metrics to assess quality of life and found patients had impaired quality of life in cognitive, fatigue, sleep, anxiety and depression with no differences between the breakthrough infection and pre-vaccination groups.

·       The study assessed cognitive function and found that patients performed worse on a range of cognitive tests compared to the general population with no difference between the patients who had a breakthrough infection after vaccination and those who were infected before being vaccinated.

“Long COVID is a debilitating condition that can affect multiple organ systems and can have considerable impact on an individual’s daily function and quality of life,” Dr. Koralnik said. “Because vaccination prior to infection does not decrease the neurological manifestations of long COVID, it is critical to keep our communities safe from both acute COVID-19 infection and potential long-term neurological manifestations.”

To date, the Neuro COVID-19 Clinic has treated more than 2,800 long-haulers from 44 states. For more information, visit nm.org and to schedule an appointment, please call 312.695.7950.

To read the full study, click here.