About 400mln people worldwide have had long Covid-19, research

About 400 million people worldwide have been afflicted with long Covid-19, according to new research.

The estimated economic cost, from factors like health care services and patients unable to return to work, is about 1 trillion U.S dollar globally each year, or about 1 per cent of the global economy, according to the research, published on Friday in the journal Nature Medicine.

The research is an effort to summarize the ="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/500?q=health">knowledge about and effects< of long Covid-19 across the globe four years after it first emerged.

It also aims to "provide a road map for policy and research priorities," said one author, Ziyad Al-Aly, the chief of research and development at the V.A. St. Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001398421/covid-pandemic-and-lockdown-how-2020-changed-the-world">Al-Aly wrote the paper< with several other leading Covid-19 researchers and three leaders of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, an organization formed by long Covid-19 patients who are also professional researchers.

Other conclusions include that about 6 per cent of adults globally have had long Covid-19; many people have not fully recovered; and treatment remains one of the biggest challenges.