Long covid sufferers turn to support group for help
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An Irish long covid support group is continuing to receive new queries and requests for help from people who have developed the debilitating condition after a covid-19 infection.
Sarah O’Connell said this week the group had more queries after the HSE published its first data on long covid figures for Ireland.
Some 18% of people who had covid-19 went on to develop long covid, the HSE survey showed.
This is in line with international findings which have showed a range of between 10% and 20%.
It is however higher than the Healthy Ireland 2024 survey reported recently which had indicated a 7% rate nationally.
Ms O’Connell, co-founder of Long Covid Advocacy Ireland, welcomed the survey.
“We get people contacting us all the time,” she said.
“People are finding us all the time sadly. So it does look like even the new variants are triggering long covid.
"There isn’t much evidence yet in terms of comparing variants but definitely there are new patients all along.”
She also raised concern at the number of people who have had multiple covid-19 infections and about access to treatment.
“There’s patients coming to us who have have covid now several times, and were fine the first few times but now on their third or fourth infection are becoming unwell with long covid,” she said.
An interim model of care was put in place by the HSE in 2021 with a working group set to review this.
“A wealth of research on long covid has been published globally since 2021, and this updated knowledge must be reflected in the model of care,” she said.
“The current model of care is inadequate. With only six public clinics across the country, three of which are located in Dublin, access is a postcode lottery.”
The HSE’s Follow-up After Disease Acquisition survey involved only patients from the HSE region covering Dublin and the midlands.
They had 4,671 responses with 2,338 having had covid-19 and among them 424 who had long covid diagnosed by a doctor.
People who were sick in the early stages of the pandemic and people who were unvaccinated were more likely to report getting long covid.
Self-reported long covid was more common among women, those in their 40s, healthcare workers, and those with multiple baseline chronic illnesses, the survey also showed.
Some 25% recovered within two months and 75% within four months. The most common symptoms were fatigue, cognitive issues, joint or muscle pain, sleep disturbances, and breathlessness.