Thursday, 12 March 2026, 1:26 pm
Press Release: Long Covid Support Aotearoa
New Zealand isn’t tracking the size or cost of Long Covid
nationally. Yet experts estimate our post-Covid illness
crisis could involve as many as a quarter of a million
people.
In the absence of prevalence data here, Public
Health Communication Centre experts estimate a quarter
of a million Kiwis — roughly 5% of the population —
could have Long Covid. This is within the ballpark of
findings in other countries.
Long Covid Support
Aotearoa says better data are urgently needed to understand
the true impact of the condition and to plan appropriate
health services.
“Long Covid is no longer a mystery
illness — thousands of research papers have now been
published worldwide,” Long Covid Support Aotearoa Chair
Larisa Hockey said.
Health economics professor Paula
Lorgelly, lead researcher for the Long Covid Registry
Aotearoa, says Long Covid’s illness burden is
significant.
“Quality-of-life impacts reported by
patients are similar to cancer and MS. But the broader
societal implications of Long Covid are, in the words of UK
immunologist Professor Danny Altmann, ‘so
large as to be unfathomable’.”
Long Covid
Support Aotearoa says national prevalence monitoring would
help policymakers to understand the scale of the issue and
ensure the health system is prepared.
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“Without good
data, it’s difficult to plan services or support people
effectively,” Hockey said. “Counting Long Covid properly
is the first step towards addressing it.”
Long Covid
is largely absent from the recent Covid-19 inquiry. In both
phases, the Royal Commission excluded the condition as
“out of scope”. In contrast, the Australian government
completed a whole
inquiry into Long Covid in 2023.
Long Covid
Support Aotearoa is calling for:
National Long
Covid prevalence monitoring
Economic analysis on
the cost of Long Covid
Clear clinical pathways and
support for primary care
Ongoing access to
Covid-19 prevention measures, including wider vaccine
eligibility for all age-groups from six months.
New
Zealand is also in the dark on Long Covid’s price tag. No
studies have assessed its cost to our economy. Health
specialists have applied a 2024 Australian cost estimate to
our country – proposing a figure of more
than $2 billion annually in lost productivity
alone.
“New Zealand moved quickly to prevent Covid
deaths,” Hockey said. “Now we must ensure the long-term
health impacts are not
overlooked.”
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