A study by Quebec's public health institute has found that between six and 10 per cent of the province's health-care workers have experienced long COVID. This colorized electron microscope image made available by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in November 2022, shows cells, indicated in purple, infected with the omicron strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, orange, isolated from a patient sample, captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Md. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-HO, NIAID/NIH
MONTREAL – A study by Quebec’s public health institute has found that between six and 10 per cent of the province’s health-care workers have experienced long COVID.
The study, whose preliminary results were presented today at a Montreal conference on long COVID, found that one-third of workers said they have had severe symptoms and more than half had experienced symptoms for at least a year.
Dr. Sara Carazo, the study’s author and an epidemiologist at the institute, says that post-COVID illness has had a major effect on the health of those workers and their ability to do their jobs.
More than 26,000 of Quebec’s 400,000 health-care workers participated in online or telephone surveys, conducted between May and July.
The study found that three-quarters of respondents have had COVID-19 at least once and 10 per cent of those workers still had symptoms that had lasted more than 12 weeks.
The most common symptoms of long COVID reported by Quebec health-care workers were fatigue, shortness of breath, concentration problems, memory loss and brain fog.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2023.
