People who had Covid-19 infections with mild or no symptoms should heave a sigh of relief as a team of scientists has, for the first time, found that virus in such patients is unlikely to cause lasting damage to the structure or function of the heart.

This should reassure the public, said the scientists given that it is a well known fact that severe hospitalised Covid-19 infections are associated with blood clots, inflammation of the heart and heart damage, mild infections may cause similar complications. 

According to a study led by UCL (University College London) researchers and funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and Barts Charity until now, there has been little information specifically looking at this group of people and the effects on the heart further down the line after infection.

Published in JACC Cardiovascular Imaging, the study of 149 healthcare workers recruited from Barts Health and Royal Free London NHS Trusts is the largest and most detailed study to date into mild Covid-19 infection and its longer-term impact on the heart. Researchers identified participants with mild Covid-19 from the Covid sortium, a study in three London hospitals where healthcare workers had undergone weekly samples of blood, saliva and nasal swabs for 16 weeks.

Six months after mild infection, they looked at the heart structure and function by analysing heart MRI scans of 74 healthcare workers with prior mild Covid-19 and compared them to the scans of 75 healthy age, sex and ethnicity matched controls who had not previously been infected.

They found no difference in the size or amount of muscle of the left ventricle - the main chamber of the heart responsible for pumping blood around the body.