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The disease places enormous pressure on patients and society, with an economic cost of around $1 trillion a year, a new report estimates.
By Pam Belluck
Pam Belluck has been reporting on Covid since the outbreak of the disease.
Around 400 million people around the world have been affected by long Covid, according to a new report by scientists and other researchers who have studied the disease. The team estimated that the economic cost – due to aspects such as patients’ physical condition and inability to return to painting – is around $1 trillion globally each year, or about 1% of the global economy.
The report, published Friday in the journal Nature Medicine, aims to summarize the wisdom and effects of long Covid around the world four years after its appearance.
It also aims to “provide a roadmap for policy and study priorities,” said one of the authors, Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, the V. A. St’s head of studies and progression. Louis Health Care System and clinical epidemiologist at the University of Washington in St. Louis Health System. I co-authored the paper along with several other prominent Covid scholars and three leaders of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, an organization made up of long-time Covid patients who are also professional scholars.
Among the conclusions:
The authors evaluated studies and measures to estimate that by the end of 2023, about 6 percent of adults and about 1 percent of young people, or about 400 million more people, had already had long Covid since the start of the pandemic. He noted that new cases slowed in 2022 and 2023 due to vaccines and the milder Omicron variant.
They cautioned that the true number could be higher because their estimate only includes other people who evolved for a long time with Covid after symptoms appeared in the infectious phase of the virus, and does not include other people who had more than one Covid infection.
The authors cited studies suggesting that between 7 and 10% of long Covid patients fully recovered two years after having long Covid. They added that “some manifestations of long Covid, in addition to central disease, diabetes, myalgic encephalomyelitis and dysautonomia, are chronic conditions that last a lifetime. ”
The consequences are considerable, the authors write: “Long Covid especially affects patients’ well-being and self-esteem, as well as their ability to work, socialize, care for others, manage family tasks, and interact in networking activities, which also affects patients’ families, caregivers, and their communities.
The report cites estimates that between two and four million adults were laid off due to long Covid in 2022 and that other people with long Covid were 10% less likely to be hired than those who had never been affected by the virus. They have to reduce their running hours and one in four restrict their outdoor activities to be able to continue running, according to the report.
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