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Cases of long Covid could put the NHS under pressure for many years to come, an expert has warned.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said people experiencing long-term symptoms of coronavirus could become a burden on the health service equivalent to arthritis.

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Prof Altmann said arthritis is currently the biggest cause on our NHS time and expenditure but said long Covid risked eclipsing it by taking up even more resources.

He was asked on Times Radio whetherlongCovidwould become less of an issue as fewer people become severely ill from coronavirus, to which he replied: Probably not.

I think for me the rule of thumb at the moment looking at thelongCovidcases is theres no absolute correlation with how severe your initial attack was, Prof. Altmann added.

So theres plenty of people out there who barely know they had it and never had a PCR test or antibody test who are suffering massively still fromlongCovid.

It really worries me, the kind of burden Ive been suggesting is equivalent to our NHS burden of arthritis, which is one of the biggest cause on our NHS time and expenditure.

Its a real thing to worry and think about for the future, for patients and healthcare planning.

Long-Covid patients have complained of persistent fatigue, shortness of breath and problems with memory lasting for months after they were initially infected.

And Prof Altmann said the number of patients reporting symptoms ofCovid-19 weeks after becoming ill could be as high as 20 per cent.

He added that a figure of one in 20 people sufferinglongCovid, reported in October by Kings College London, is lower than what is now being reported.

Many people would have 10-20 per cent as their range if you look at the papers on how many people are still reporting significant symptoms several months afterwards, he continued.

Prof Altmann urged the Government to consider openinglongCovidclinics to dealing with the increased pressure on the NHS.

He recently made the case at a World Health Organisation meeting for mechanisms to be in place for people to be referred to relevant specialists.

The point I was trying to make was really a call to arms for some really good solid research and mechanisms here, because theres no point just having the banner above the clinic if we havent got the doctors to sit in them, he continued.

Prof Altmann warned that there is no absolute correlation between severe illness andlongCovid.

He added: Theres plenty of people out there who barely know they had it and never had a PCR test or antibody test who are suffering massively still fromlongCovid.

Additional reporting byPress Association

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Long Covid could create burden on NHS equivalent to arthritis - iNews

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