Members of the public have been asked to contribute to a survey to determine how prevalent long Covid is in the community.
The follow-up after disease acquisition (FADA) survey from the HSE will seek to measure the impact that Covid-19 has had on people.
The survey will be launched online on Tuesday and will be confined to people living in HSE public health area B. This consists of the counties Longford, Westmeath, Laois, Offaly, Kildare, west Wicklow and South Dublin.
They will be invited by text message to take part in the online survey. The survey may later be extended to a wider area depending on responses and findings from the area.
Specialist in public health medicine Dr Paul Kavanagh said the HSE also wants to hear from those who are fully recovered from Covid-19.
“We want to know how many people who get Covid-19 make a full recovery, and if there are any reasons why some people take longer to recover,” he said.
Public Health Medicine consultant Dr Úna Fallon said: “Long Covid is also important as part of this because it can cause different problems that change over time for people. We want to hear from people if you have long Covid, and we ask that you share your experience with us.
“We hope to use the information to help us to estimate how common long Covid is in the community ie the prevalence rate of long Covid.
“It will also help us to understand how people who had Covid-19 are feeling now. For us to understand this, it is important to know about people who feel fine today as well as those who are still feeling unwell.”
The survey will take between 10 and 20 minutes to complete.
