The National Institutes of Health has announced plans to provide an additional $515 million in funding over the next four years for the research and treatment of long COVID.
The increased funding is part of a nationwide initiative called RECOVER to better understand, diagnose and treat long COVID. The NIH received $1.15 billion in congressional funding to launch the initiative in 2021.
According to a NIH news release, the $515 million in additional funding will be used for:
- Testing additional interventions in clinical trials to find effective treatments to reduce the burden of Long COVID
- Improving understanding of how the SARS-CoV-2 virus affects the body as it triggers long COVID and identifying potential biological targets for diagnosis and treatment
- Investigating longer-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection in adults and children to understand who fully recovers over the long term, and how the virus affects risk for other diseases such as diabetes, cancer and neurological disorders
- Continuing the collection, integration, analysis and storage of clinical data and biospecimens necessary to better understand and treat COVID 19
“These studies, and others will provide important insights into long COVID and will improve our understanding of other infection-associated chronic conditions with similar symptoms to inform treatments,” Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, director of the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 9 adults in the United States who have ever had COVID-19 continue to experience long COVID with a wide range of symptoms. Some of those symptoms include tiredness or fatigue, shortness of breath or cough, difficulty thinking or concentrating (sometimes known as “brain fog”), headaches, difficulty sleeping, dizziness, changes in smell or taste, and depression and anxiety, according to the CDC.
