Corona pandemic: care offers for long Covid are not enough

Corona pandemic: care offers for long Covid are not enough

The Federal Government’s Expert Council urgently calls for an expansion of the care offer for people with Covid 19 complications. There are also warnings about a long-term burden on the health and social security system.

From the point of view of the Federal Government’s Expert Council, nationwide care offers for people with Covid-19 complications should urgently be established.

In view of the increasing number of patients, the current range of care is “far from sufficient”, according to a statement submitted by the committee on Long/Post-Covid.

The expert council recommends that structures for the care of those affected of all age groups should be established. Examples include special outpatient clinics and rehabilitation clinics. Other measures that are also listed as urgently needed include more research funding on the topic. There should therefore be educational and information campaigns for those involved in the healthcare system as well as for the general public.

According to the paper, the generic term Long Covid summarizes complaints that are associated with a Sars-CoV-2 infection and that persist more than four weeks later. A sub-form is post-Covid – there are “otherwise unexplainable symptoms” three months after the corona infection and lead to relevant restrictions in everyday life. The signs of the disease are described in the paper as complex. “A leading symptom of many post-Covid sufferers is significant exhaustion (fatigue) and limited resilience.”

According to the Panel’s assessment, these types of complaints are very likely to have a long-term impact on society and the health and social security system. In terms of frequency, it was said that, according to epidemiological studies, a majority of people who were treated in intensive care units with a severe course of Covid 19 developed long-term complications. After a mild infection, around 10 percent of those affected met the post-Covid criteria.

Source: Stern

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