WHO Advances Research On Post COVID-19 Condition

• Research
• WHO held a global meeting of patients, clinicians and other stakeholders last week to advance understanding of what is officially called post-COVID-19 condition or long COVID.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says far more research is needed into the “constellation” of sometimes debilitating symptoms among people who have recovered from COVID-19, adding that it “will impact” global health systems.

WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, said this at a news conference on COVID-19 at WHO headquarters in Geneva on Friday.

In his speech posted on WHO website, Ghebreyesus said WHO held a global meeting of patients, clinicians and other stakeholders last week to advance understanding of what is officially called post-COVID-19 condition or long COVID.

He said WHO released a case reporting form that would allow more data to be collected on long COVID in a standardised way.

“This will help to improve the understanding, surveillance and clinical management of the condition,’’ the director general said.

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According to him, the independent expert team to study the origins of the COVID-19 virus has completed its trip to China.

“The expert team is working on a summary report which we hope will be published next week, and the final report will be published in the coming weeks.

“The number of reported cases of COVID-19 globally has declined for the fourth week in a row, and the number of deaths also fell for the second consecutive week.

“These declines appear to be due to countries implementing public health measures more stringently,’’ he said.

The Pfizer-BioNTech jab was the first to receive WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL) on Dec. 31, 2020.