Some Stanislaus County residents still suffer from COVID. UCSF study may explain why

A new study, showing the COVID-19 virus may remain in the body more than a year, could help researchers develop a better understanding of so-called long COVID and possible treatments.

Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, detected pieces of the SARS-CoV-2 in the bloodstream up to 14 months after the person came down with COVID-19, a news release said.

Fragments of the virus were found in the tissue of COVID-infected people more than two years after the illness.

The UCSF study was released ahead of Monday’s fourth anniversary of the World Health Organization declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020. The end of the pandemic was announced in May 2023.

More than 1,900 residents of Stanislaus County died of COVID-19. There are no firm statistics on how many county residents have suffered from long COVID, those cases in which people struggle with fatigue, shortness of breath and other symptoms for months or years, even though some were only mildly sick at first.

The UCSF study used highly sensitive testing to look for the virus in blood samples of 171 people with a history of COVID infection and used the university’s long COVID tissue bank, containing samples from patients, to look for signs of the virus in tissue.

COVID antigens remained in the blood for a prolonged period almost twice as often in people who had been hospitalized for COVID-19. Remnants of the virus also were found at a higher rate in people who were not hospitalized but reported serious illness.

Pieces of the viral RNA were found in tissue of some people two years after they were infected. There was no indication those individuals had been reinfected after the initial illness.

The study found evidence that the viral fragments in connective tissue caused an immune response, a possible cause of symptoms in viral infections.

“As a clinician, these associations convince me that we are on to something, because it makes sense that someone who had been sick with COVID would have more antigen that can stick around,” Dr. Michael Peluso, a UCSF infectious disease researcher, said in the news release.

The study concluded that additional research is needed to tell if the long-lasting viral material plays a role in long COVID and higher risk of stroke and heart attacks.

Peluso’s research team is overseeing clinical trials testing possible treatments for long COVID, such as monoclonal antibodies and antiviral drugs.

According to the news release, funding supporting the studies came from the PolyBio Research Foundation, a Merck program grant and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.