New research has found that women are 'significantly' more likely than men to suffer from long COVID syndrome, in addition to developing different symptoms of the disease.
Previous studies have shown that women are less prone to developing severe disease than men in the acute phase of COVID-19, however, researchers note few studies have assessed sex-differences related to long COVID.
The study's authors say the findings underscore a "critical need" for sex-disaggregated research, saying the difference in immune system function between females and male "could be an important driver" in developing long COVID. Of the 640,634 total articles studied, researchers say only 35 provided enough sex-disaggregated data of COVID-19 to examine how females and males differently experience the disease.
"Unfortunately, most studies did not evaluate or report granular data by sex, which limited sex-specific clinical insights that may be impacting treatment," they wrote.