When it launched these research efforts — titled “Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery” or RECOVER — in 2021 it got the project off the ground with an initial government investment of $1.15 billion.
The latest funding will help the NIH improve its “understanding of Long COVID and increase the odds of identifying treatments that work,” Monica Bertagnolli, MD, director of the NIH wrote in the announcement.
Scientists and clinicians worldwide have invested countless hours and billions of dollars into understanding why some individuals who get COVID-19 recover fully, but others experience a wide range of enduring symptoms and continue to feel sick.
There is still work to be done even in fully defining what the condition is and how it presents itself medically in different patients.
The condition still lacks a specific definition in the medical community, targeted therapeutics, and even acceptance as many who experience the condition are met with stigma as to whether what they are experiencing is even real, experts told Becker’s during a previous interview.
As a result, many patients with long COVID have invested their time and money into unproven treatments and Band-Aid solutions.
With the $515 million in latest funding, the NIH will prioritize testing and interventions in clinical trials, developing future treatments, investigate how it affects adults and children, and support data collection and analysis to grow the body of research around the condition.
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