Up to 10 per cent of Quebec health-care workers have experienced long COVID: study

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 Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÒÅÆ×ÊÁÏ 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 Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÒÅÆ×ÊÁÏ was first published Sept. 21, 2023.

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