Finally, in an exploratory sex-stratified analysis at day 90–180 after infection, using transcriptomic profiling in peripheral blood in the combined cohort, females with LC (n = 29) showed stronger enrichment of inflammatory pathways than females who recovered (CC, n = 14), including monocyte signatures, proinflammatory cytokine/chemokine signaling, complement and coagulation cascades, IL-6, JAK1, JAK-STAT signaling, and T cell exhaustion (Extended Data Fig. 8a). Here, IL6 is linked to infection.