IT HAS been nearly four years since the covid-19 pandemic began, and many of us would love to forget all about it. But there are millions for whom that is impossible. For them, covid-19 still looms large due to lingering symptoms that remain months, even years, after the initial infection.
Thankfully, interest in long covid, as the condition is known, has been high and our understanding of this post-viral disease has advanced rapidly. As we describe in our feature on page 36, researchers are building a detailed picture of how it affects people’s health, including impacts on the immune system, gut and blood. This work is pointing towards potential causes – including the possibility that the coronavirus still lurks in some of us long after it stops showing up in blood tests. It is also enabling trials of treatments and preventative measures, several of which are showing real promise.
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This represents rapid and tangible progress. It is a far cry from other post-infection conditions. Famously, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) was dismissed for decades: it is now increasingly accepted as a post-infection illness, thanks in part to the massive research efforts around long covid. It is a similar story for a pain disorder called fibromyalgia.
This groundswell is clearly a positive step for many conditions, but what is less clear is whether political will and funding will be maintained. In the US, things look promising – a large research programme for long covid – but in the UK a launched in 2021 could soon come to a stop.
Across the world, political motivation needs revitalising and policies need to reflect what we have learned so far. This includes the issue of unpaid sick leave (resting during covid-19 infection reduces the risk of developing long covid) and improving indoor air quality to reduce the spread of disease. We may want to put covid to the back of our minds, but there are too many people still suffering its long tail to forget it any time soon.