Nearly a third of patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19 had 'abnormalities' in multiple organs five months after their infection, an Oxford study found. 

MRI scans of patients in the study, which is led by researchers from the University of Oxford showed more abnormal findings involving the lungs, brain and kidneys compared to a group of people who had not had the virus.

Betty Raman, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Oxford, said: “We found that nearly one in three patients had an excess burden of multiorgan abnormalities on MRI relative to controls.

“At five months after hospital discharge for Covid-19, patients showed a high burden of abnormalities involving the lungs, brain and kidneys compared to our non-Covid-19 controls.

“The age of the individual, severity of acute Covid-19 infection, as well as comorbidities, were significant factors in determining who had organ injury at follow-up.”

READ MORE: Coronavirus news from Oxford and Oxfordshire

Dr Raman said people who had been suffering with long Covid should feel hopeful that the research was ongoing, and that there were some answers.

She said: “[The research] provides some validation to patients, especially those who are severely crippled with symptoms, that perhaps there is something that we need to look into and follow up and do more tests to be sure that they don’t have organ involvement.”

Researchers compared scans from 259 patients who had been treated for covid in hospital with a control group of 52 people who did not have the virus. The study was published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.