On the 13th of December 2022 the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety within the European Commission hosted an online conference with over 800 participants to highlight the latest news and developments on long COVID in the European Union and the United States of America. Experts from medical, public health, and health economics disciplines, as well as representatives of patient organisations and policymakers, shared their experiences and insights on long COVID. Emerging evidence suggests that as many as 1 in 8 people who recover from COVID-19 will experience long COVID with a wide range of debilitating symptoms lasting weeks or months after the initial infection. The main objectives of the conference were to exchange experiences and knowledge between the EU and the US in long COVID research, treatment and health systems’ responses, and to identify key challenges and knowledge gaps in these areas.
ID-CARE Director, Professor Evelina Tacconelli was one of the keynote speakers with her discussion titled “Shedding light on the many mysteries of long COVID”. She noted the high number of symptoms associated with long COVID, with more than 60 already documented, and said that women have a threefold higher risk of developing long COVID than men. She also highlighted that the introduction of vaccines had significantly changed the incidence and prevalence of long COVID. This had been clearly demonstrated in a recent study which found that patients with infected with COVID-19 after vaccination had a reduced risk of long COVID and death compared to unvaccinated patients. She also noted that the risk of long COVID varied depending on the circulating variant of the virus, with a reduced risk of long COVID with the omicron variant versus the delta variant depending on age and time since vaccination. Prof. Tacconelli also gave an update on the ORCHESTRA project and Cohort Coordination Board.
The key take home messages from Prof. Tacconelli’s talk were:
There are more than 60 documented symptoms of long COVID, and women are at a threefold higher risk of developing the condition than men.
People who were not hospitalized with COVID-19 can still develop long COVID, regardless of the severity of their initial infection.
The incidence and prevalence of long COVID have been impacted by the introduction of vaccines, with vaccinated individuals having a reduced risk of long COVID and death compared to unvaccinated individuals.
The risk of long COVID varies depending on the circulating variant of the virus.
There is a high level of stigma associated with long COVID.
There is a need for consensus on the definition of long COVID. Symptoms should not be the only factor in defining long COVID, as different symptom clusters can have varying impacts on functional impairment and quality of life.
There is an urgent need to focus more on low-income countries and vulnerable populations where there is limited information on Long COVID.
Read the full report here: https://health.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-03/ncd_20221213_mi_en.pdf
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