The federal government is being encouraged to come up with a list of criteria to diagnose post-COVID-19 condition or long-COVID as well as guidelines for doctors to treat it.

The 18 recommendations, including strategies to identify and treat patients, track them, reserarch the condition and prevent infections, come from a task force set up in July.

Canada’s chief science adviser Dr. Mona Nemer spells out what needs to be done.

”We need to acknowledge that PCC (post-COVID-condition) is real, that COVID-19 manifests itself as an acute but also as a chronic illness,” adds Nemer.

As of August, nearly 15% of adults who’ve had COVID, experienced symptoms three months or more after their initial infection.

Ottawa’s last budget included $20-million over five-years to research the long-term effects of infections on Canadians, as well as the wider impact of the pandemic on health care systems.