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09 September 2024 – 16:33
Brussels, Sep 9 (EFE).- The European Commission announced on Monday the launch of a project with 2 million euros to address long-term Covid, from its medical definition to its socioeconomic consequences.
“Long Covid has serious consequences for people who suffer from it and, more broadly, for our society and economy,” said European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides in a statement.
The European Commission will officially launch the project on Tuesday, which will be managed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The initiative will focus on defining long Covid, developing a surveillance system, promoting information exchange between healthcare professionals, providing clinical guidelines and recommendations to Member States, supporting patients and their caregivers, assessing its socio-economic consequences and identifying research gaps and needs.
The Commission will also set up a group on long Covid so that stakeholders and patient groups can share their experiences and knowledge, the EU executive added.
Long Covid, according to the WHO, affected 36 million people across Europe during the first three years of the pandemic and, based on Commission estimates, cost the EU economy between 0.2 and 0.3% of GDP in output losses in 2022 due to reduced labour supply. EFE
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