Catch up on ELF’s patient conference ‘Living with COVID-19’

On 26 November 2022, ELF hosted an online patient conference about living with COVID-19. Recordings of the sessions are now available to watch.

The conference was co-chaired by a patient and doctor, who both have long-COVID. The day was split into 3 sessions:

1. Living with COVID-19
2. Long-COVID
3. Vaccination

Each session included expert presentations, patient experiences and a question and answer session.

212 people from more than 40 countries registered for the conference. 65 people attended live on the day. In a survey after the event, 21 people (62% of respondents) said the conference was excellent and 13 people (38%) said it was good. Attendees particularly valued the expertise and clarity of the speakers, and being able to hear the experiences of patients.

Many attendees asked questions on the day and we plan to publish these with answers in the near future.

Below are some quotes from some of the presentations:

• “COVID-19 will stay. We have to learn to live with it without being too careless or overprotective.” Prof. Tobias Welte
• “We need to be able to adapt rehabilitation programmes to support the needs of the patients.” Dr. Joan Soriano
• “The COVID-19 vaccine almost halves the odds of developing long-COVID.” Prof. Anita Simonds

We would like to say a huge thanks to the:  

• ELF COVID-19 Patient Advisory Group for helping to organise the event; 
• speakers for giving such insightful presentations and answering questions; 
• patients who shared their experiences in a video; 
• attendees for watching and participating; and 
• DRAGON project for funding the event. 

This project has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 101005122. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA. More information is available at: https://www.imi.europa.eu/.

Copyright – DRAGON -The communication reflects the author’s view and neither IMI nor the European Union, EFPIA, or any Associated Partners are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.