One in 4 people with multiple sclerosis report that, one year after the start of the pandemic, rehabilitation facilities and services are still inactive.
13% of patients lost their jobs, especially among young people, and 65% report that their caregiver has been close to burnout.
The data of the Italian Multiple Sclerosis Association (Aism) tell the weight of Covid on the 130,000 Italians who suffer from this serious disease of the central nervous system, whose World Day is celebrated on May 30th.
"Many patients are young and in full working age, which is why multiple sclerosis is a disease that remains a social emergency, with a great impact in economic terms for the country system, amounting to 6 billion euros a year, between direct and indirect costs ", explains the president of the Italian Multiple Sclerosis Foundation (FISM), Mario Alberto Battaglia. Their difficulties, explains Paolo Bandiera, Director of Institutional Relations of Aism, "are exacerbated by the context we are living in. During the pandemic, 91% of the Centers suffered an impact on their functioning and 42% stopped infusions of specific drugs at the most critics of the emergency.
Despite the moment of crisis, the system of clinical centers remained well ", which in a few months have equipped themselves for teleconsultation and telematic prescriptions. These and other data will be presented to the institutions on Monday 31 May at the streaming event "A thousand actions beyond multiple sclerosis", the culmination of a dense series of initiatives that will also be broadcast on Ansa.it.
