Since the pandemic began, nearly 36 million people in the World Health Organisation’s European region may have developed prolonged health impairments after Coronavirus infections.

This corresponds to about one in 30 Europeans over the past three years, WHO regional director, Hans Kluge, said at a news conference in Copenhagen on Tuesday.

Much more needed to be done to understand long COVID more precisely, he said.

“Long COVID remains a complex condition we still know very little about,’’ Mr Kluge said.

Without the development of comprehensive diagnostics and forms of treatment, society would never truly recover from the pandemic, he added.

The WHO counted a total of 53 countries in its European Region, including not only the EU but also countries to the east of it, as far as Central Asia.

Long COVID is the term used to describe symptoms that persist beyond the acute phase of the disease, which lasts four weeks, or which then reappears.

(dpa/NAN)