Ms Imelda O'Donovan:

We are part of research that is being overseen by Canada and that involves Canada, the US, the UK and Ireland. It is looking at long Covid as an episodic disability. That has been rolled out since the end of 2021 and is ongoing. Initially, there were ten participants from each of the four countries. The findings were that long Covid is an episodic disability. That has been progressed and there are now 170 participants in each of the four countries. It is now quite major research. There are also two offshoots. One is looking at pacing and one is looking at guidelines relating to employment. It is looking at guidelines for employers and guidelines for employees in this regard. We are looking at the common ground between the four countries with sufferers of long Covid. We are finding there is a great deal of commonality. Therefore, whichever country a person is in, the symptoms are the same and the findings are similar.