About one in nine Canadian adults experienced long-term symptoms after contracting COVID-19, according to a new report from Statistics Canada.
Published yesterday at 10:19 p.m.
Nicole Ireland The Canadian Press
This equates to 3.5 million Canadians, we learn from the federal agency's report released Friday.
Nearly 80% of people who have long-term symptoms of COVID-19 have had them for six months or longer, the report said, including 42% for a year or longer.
The consequences are “significant” not only for the affected patients, but for the entire country, emphasized Manali Mukherjee, an assistant professor of medicine at McMaster University who specializes in respiratory diseases and immunology, in an interview.
“(These patients) see decreased daily productivity. This affects their quality of life, which has a direct impact on the socio-economic situation in Canada,” explained Dr. Mukherjee, who has been dealing with COVID-19 for a long time and has experienced the symptoms of infection herself for 18 months.
Long COVID is defined by the World Health Organization as symptoms that last three months or longer after infection and cannot be explained otherwise.
According to Statistics Canada's report, more than half of people who already had long-term symptoms of COVID-19 were still showing them last June.
“Of those who continued to experience symptoms in June 2023, about 7 in 10 reported feeling them every day or almost every day when they peaked, and about 1 in 5 (21.7%) reported feeling them that they were often or always restricted in their daily activities,” the federal agency added.
“Overall, half (49.7%) of people whose symptoms were persistent reported no improvement over time. »
According to Dr. Mukherjee not surprising.
“Long COVID is very real,” she recalls.
The most common symptoms of long COVID are headaches, fatigue and shortness of breath, she said.
Research has shown that vaccination against COVID-19 reduces the risk of long-term symptoms. According to Dr. According to Mukherjee, the vaccination also helps reduce the severity of symptoms.
Two-thirds of Canadian adults who attempted to seek medical care for long-term symptoms related to COVID-19 said they did not receive appropriate treatment, services or support, we read in the Statistics Canada report.
Researchers, doctors and health authorities across the country, working with affected patients, are trying to correct this situation through a massive knowledge-sharing network called the Long COVID Web, Mukherjee said.
“We are all working to understand […] the different biomarkers that explain this persistence (of symptoms). […] and to find a way to target them through targeted treatments,” she assured.
” There is always hope. ”
Statistics Canada prepared its report using data from the 2023 Canada COVID-19 Antibody and Health Survey follow-up questionnaire.