By Marta Iraola Iribarren/Euronews Health Correspondent.
The chronic condition could cost OECD countries billions per year, with the total comparable to the annual health budgets of the Netherlands or Spain, a new report shows.
The long-term illness impacting some people who suffered a COVID-19 infection, known as long COVID, could cost OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries a total of $135 billion (almost €116 billion) per year over the next decade.
This is “comparable to the entire annual health budget of the Netherlands or Spain,” a new report by the OECD noted.
While this March marked six years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it continues to impact the global economy.
Millions of people still suffer from long COVID, a condition that costs healthcare systems billions of euros and strains labour markets.
The disease, as well as other post-acute infection syndromes, is not receding, but there are worrying signs of decreased political and financial attention to the topic, the OECD warned.
“Sustained momentum is necessary, as addressing these conditions benefits both immediate patient-centred agendas and long-term preparedness for future pandemic scenarios,” the authors wrote.
Based on its own analysis, the OECD estimates that long COVID affected about 5.3 percent of the total population across its member countries in 2021, at the peak of the pandemic, equivalent to roughly 75 million people, with healthcare costs hitting $53 billion (€45.3 billion).
While the prevalence of long COVID and associated healthcare costs has fallen since the height of the pandemic, the direct healthcare costs for tackling the condition are projected to remain at around $11 billion (€9.40 billion) per year between 2025 and 2035, “even under conservative assumptions”.
What is long COVID?
Anyone who was infected with COVID-19 can develop long COVID, a condition characterised by a range of symptoms, ranging from fatigue, pain in muscles or joints, and breathlessness to headaches and brain fog.
Symptoms usually start within three months of the initial COVID-19 illness and last at least two months.
The condition generally improves over time, typically within the first nine months; however, around 15 in 100 people still have symptoms after a year.
Current evidence suggests that long COVID is not a single disease but a cluster of related subtypes with potentially distinct risk factors — genetic, environmental, or otherwise — and diverse biological mechanisms, the OECD report read.
Consequences beyond health
Across high-income countries, the message is consistent: persistent post-infection symptoms are not only a health challenge but also a structural brake on economic output, the report noted.
“The indirect economic costs of long COVID are set to far outweigh the associated healthcare costs from 2025 to 2035.”
The OECD analysed the socio-economic impact of long COVID, driven by employment breaks, premature exit from the workplace, and reduced productivity.
“Long COVID will continue to dent workforce participation and productivity at a time of modest economic growth and population ageing,” the report’s authors wrote.
Looking ahead, projections suggest that, depending on the ongoing incidence of the virus, long COVID prevalence could stabilise at around 0.6 to 1.0 percent of the OECD population over the next ten years.
Projections to 2035 show that, while losses may fall to negligible levels under optimistic assumptions, more realistic scenarios predict persistent yearly losses of 0.1 to 0.2 percent of GDP, which could amount to $135 billion (€115.38 billion) per year over the next decade.
What is the way forward?
While long COVID’s clinical features are now better understood, its economic and social consequences are only beginning to be systematically measured, the OECD noted.
Considering the health aspect alone, the report said that recognition, diagnosis, and care remain uneven across countries.
Most countries lack robust, usable data on long COVID, which limits their ability to estimate burdens and develop effective policy interventions, the report noted.
Authors called on countries to prioritise the collection and reporting of high-quality national data on long COVID to inform policy responses.
Learning from the long COVID experience is critical to strengthening preparedness for future pandemics, the OECD added.
“The COVID‑19 response revealed that long‑term consequences of infection were often neglected in the early stages, and risked being overlooked as the pandemic entered the post-acute recovery phase,” the report noted.
In any future pandemic, or in the event of the emergence of a new or more virulent COVID-19 variant, they said, attention to potential long‑term sequelae — a condition which is the consequence of a previous disease or injury — must be anticipated and integrated into planning from the start of the acute response.
