Begonia Fernandez
Madrid, September 9 (EFE) – “The coronavirus is still here, and so is the ongoing coronavirus”, a disease that has afflicted at least 700,000 Spaniards for three years and has now become a Sick. Chronic diseases, Pilar Rodríguez Ledo, President of Spain’s Network for Continuing Coronavirus Research (REiCOP), told EFE.
A year after the creation of REiCOP, Rodríguez Ledo reports that the network he chairs will launch a campaign in October to make visible the persistent presence of COVID-19, a disease that has played a major role in the pandemic The situation has been “downplayed” but very poorly, and due to lack of awareness it has had a huge impact on the world of work, with an estimated 6%-8% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 affected.
The World Health Organization this week warned of rising deaths in Asia and hospitalizations in Europe, as most countries stopped providing data as the international emergency ended.
In Spain, the latest coronavirus data shows an incidence rate of 137 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in September, four times the rate at the end of June, although hospitalizations have remained stable.
The incidence rate of persistent new coronavirus pneumonia dropped by 2-3 percentage points
The president of the Spanish Society of General Practitioners and Family Doctors (SEMG) also admitted that the incidence of ongoing coronavirus infections may have dropped by “two to three points”, estimated at 6-8% of total infections. Coronavirus.
However, he emphasized that “6-8% of them is a total that cannot be ignored.”
When it comes to chronic diseases, Rodriguez Ledo leaves the door open for the emergence of curative treatments, as with other viral diseases like hepatitis C, which went from deadly to medical treatments.
The campaign by REiCOP, a network of 66 scientific and professional associations and patient associations, will be launched in a few weeks to the entire population, health professionals and authorities to collaborate to quantify the number of people affected.
It involves patients identifying the center they are going to attend for procedures, professionals indicating the number of patients and reference populations they serve to make more precise estimates, and management providing transparent information.
Activities: Visualize Me, Code Me, Diagnose Me
“If you know how many people there are, you can put in the necessary resources,” he said. In a nutshell, the three pillars of the campaign are: visibility, coding and diagnosis.
“We are caught in the paradox of wanting to forget the pandemic, but there are patients who still have COVID and we need to remember them,” the SEMG president warned.
Rodríguez Ledo does not believe that current mutations and mutations are more likely to produce persistent new coronaviruses: “This has less to do with mutations and more to do with the immune status of the population and the vaccines they have obtained, ” he explained.
Of these symptoms, he insists there are dozens, and they hinder quality of life and greatly affect the workplace. However, the most common are lack of focus and concentration, mental fog, and extreme fatigue, which can prevent you from performing daily activities.
In the face of this disabling disease, Rodríguez Ledo warns that some patients think they are cured because they exhibit milder symptoms, but also because of human adaptability, this lack of attention will Internalized as normal. , weakness or mental fog.
In Spain, he said, the “biggest surprise” was the lack of recognition and difficulties in the workplace. A study by SEMG confirmed that 27% of people affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are on sick leave, 19% face “many restrictions” in their daily work and 10% have lost their jobs.
BF/RAM
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