The Network of Expertise on Long COVID as a means to synthesise intelligence and improve our response to long COVID at EU level

Abstract To promote international collaboration and strengthen EU and national-level responses to Long COVID, the Commission set up the Network of Expertise on Long COVID (NELC) in 2023. It brings together national institutions involved in Long COVID work, nominated by the Public Health Expert Group (PHEG) representatives of each Member State. The network provides a platform for exchanges of national experiences on diagnosis, treatment, and management of long COVID. The Commission and the NELC agreed on eight specific actions to be implemented to manage Long COVID. The development of a Long COVID definition is complex due to the diverse range of symptoms experienced by patients, and so working towards a unified EU case definition is the first action proposal. This will allow the development and implementation of a surveillance system on national and EU level to foster the knowledge on the actual scale and the symptomatology of Long COVID across the EU leading to a better comparability of health data at Union level. The proposal to develop and implement a training programme for healthcare professionals at EU level will allow for the exchange of expertise/training on Long COVID across Member States. The provision of clinical guidelines based on evidence to Member States will help manage Long COVID, and international collaboration will allow for the sharing of valuable information and data with third countries that have experience with Long COVID. The Commission will use the EU Health Policy Platform to create an open stakeholder group. This group will allow stakeholders and patient groups to express their point of view, and to share experiences. Assessing the far-reaching social and economic consequences of Long COVID across the EU will allow for more targeted social and economic policy responses from Member States. It is important that priority is given to research responding to the most urgent needs of health care systems, which is why the Commission aims to identify research needs.