Causes of long-lasting persistent COVID-19 symptoms to be studied UC San Diego and Rady's Children Hospital

SAN DIEGO.- Up to 30 percent of patients infected with SARS-CloV-2 (better known as COVID-19), may experience persistent symptoms.

Given this, the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) and the Hospital de los Niños Radys (Rady's Children Hospital), announced a partnership to carry out a national "long-term COVID" study.

The study will last for 4 years and will be sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which will invest $1.15 billion in it.

The aforementioned research “seeks to learn why and how to prevent lingering effects and better understand the long-term impact of COVID-19 on patients across all demographic groups in the United States.”

“Better understand post-acute sequelae”

In fact, it bears the name of the RECOVER Initiative (COVID Research to improve recovery) and its purpose -it was advanced- is to better understand the "post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infections" or PASC (Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection), more commonly known as “long-COVID”.

And it is clarified in the study that Long-COVID refers to “symptoms that persist for weeks or months after acute COVID-19 infection.”

Symptoms include pain, headaches, fatigue, "brain fog," shortness of breath, anxiety, depression, fever, chronic cough, and trouble sleeping, the study says.

“Multisystem inflammatory syndrome, in some cases”

Added to the research involving UCSD and Children's Hospital, "in some affected children and adults, PASC includes multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C and MIS-A), a condition in which different parts of the body can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs.

It is noted that any of these symptoms can have a profound impact on the quality of (people's) life.

The study recalls that more than 90 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United States since the pandemic began in early 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And it highlights that although the incidence of prolonged COVID is not precisely known, current data suggests that between 10 and 30 percent of people who have an acute infection will experience persistent symptoms that last at least a month.

“It can affect certain socioeconomic groups”

It also highlights that "preliminary data suggest that PASC may disproportionately affect certain socioeconomic and demographic groups, including groups that will be represented in the UC San Diego/Rady study."

Kelan Tantisira, professor and chief of the Division of Respiratory Medicine at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego, said, "We are excited to be part of this national effort to learn more about the long duration of COVID and the factors that put someone at risk of developing this condition.

“Develop prevention strategies”

For his part, Kyung (Kay) Rhee, professor and chief of the Division of Child and Community Health at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, pointed out that “our goal is to better understand the disease in order to develop effective treatments and prevention strategies for the disease. community".

It is anticipated that more than 30 research teams across the country will be supported by more than $448 million in funding from the NIH and “teams will study and share data in real time, providing the scale needed to develop insights and answers as quickly as possible."

Finally, it was clarified that the study is known as PEDS-PASS (Post-acute SARS-CoV-2 Pediatric Epidemiology and Disparities Study) and will assess "how often (the disease) occurs in the community after an acute infection and follow the Natural history and risk factors of PASC over several years in neonates, children, and young adults.