Nature World’s largest study of long COVID will evaluate potential therapies for brain fog, sleep disruption and more. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced yesterday that it will launch its first trials to test the safety and efficacy of treatments against long COVID. These trials will focus on therapies aimed at some of the most debilitating symptoms of the disease, including brain fog and disturbed sleep.
The announcement comes after two years of criticism from researchers and people with long COVID about the direction and productivity of the NIH’s nearly-US$1.2-billion RECOVER initiative. They say that the agency has moved too slowly to enrol people in studies and start testing potential treatments for the condition, which affects an estimated 65 million people around the world.
Responding to this criticism, Kanecia Zimmerman, a clinician at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, who is helping to coordinate the RECOVER studies, said at a press briefing yesterday that there are many steps to launching a clinical trial, including drafting study protocols, consulting with specialists and people with the disease and getting approval from authorities.