THURSDAY, March 5, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Past COVID-19 illness increases the risk for kidney disease compared with individuals without COVID-19 and those with past flu infection, according to a study published online Feb. 25 in Communications Medicine.
Yue Zhang, Ph.D., from Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, and colleagues examined the association between COVID-19 infection and subsequent kidney disease. The analysis included 939,241 individuals with COVID-19, ~1.9 million individuals in the negative control group, and 199,071 individuals with influenza identified from the MarketScan database (January 2020 to December 2021).
The researchers found that COVID-19 was significantly associated with an increased risk for acute kidney injury (AKI; adjusted hazards ratio [aHR], 2.74), chronic kidney disease (CKD; aHR, 1.38), end-stage renal disease (ESRD; aHR, 3.22), and glomerular disease (aHR,1.28). In contrast, influenza had no impact on CKD, ESRD, or glomerular diseases. COVID-19 had stronger effects on AKI in the short term but had stable long-term effects on CKD.
"Individuals with COVID-19 infection may need more frequent and more prolonged monitoring of their kidney function to enable earlier detection and possible preventative interventions," coauthor Nasr Ghahramani, MD, also from Penn State College of Medicine, said in a statement. "This is particularly important for individuals who have predisposing factors for kidney disease such as diabetes and high blood pressure."