NIH builds large study to support research on long-COVID
The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded nearly $470 million to build a national study population of diverse research volunteers and support large-scale studies on the long-term effects of COVID-19.
The NIH REsearching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative [1] made the parent award to New York University (NYU) Langone Health, New York City, which will make multiple sub-awards to more than 100 researchers at more than 30 institutions and serves as the RECOVER Clinical Science Core.
This major new award to NYU Langone supports new studies of COVID-19 survivors and leverages existing long-running large cohort studies with an expansion of their research focus. This combined population of research participants from new and existing cohorts, called a meta-cohort, will comprise the RECOVER Cohort.
NIH launched the RECOVER Initiative to learn why some people have prolonged symptoms (referred to as long-COVID) or develop new or returning symptoms after the acute phase of infection from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The most common symptoms include pain, headaches, fatigue, “brain fog,” shortness of breath, anxiety, depression, fever, chronic cough, and sleep problems.
“We know some people have had their lives completely upended by the major long-term effects of COVID-19,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. “These studies will aim to determine the cause and find much needed answers to prevent this often-debilitating condition and help those who suffer move toward recovery.”
Data from the RECOVER Cohort will include clinical information, laboratory tests, and analyses of participants in various stages of recovery following SARS-CoV-2 infection. With immediate access to data from existing, diverse study populations, it is anticipated researchers will be able to accelerate the timeline for this important research.
Studies will include adult, pregnant, and paediatric populations; enrol patients during the acute as well as post-acute phases of the SARS-CoV-2 infection; evaluate tissue pathology; analyse data from millions of electronic health records; and use mobile health technologies, such as smartphone apps and wearable devices, which will gather real-world data in real time. Together, these studies are expected to provide insights over the coming months into many important questions including the incidence and prevalence of long-term effects from SARS-CoV-2 infection, the range of symptoms, underlying causes, risk factors, outcomes, and potential strategies for treatment and prevention.
“Given the range of symptoms that have been reported, intensive research using all available tools is necessary to understand what happens to stall recovery from this terrible virus. Importantly, the tissue pathology studies in RECOVER will enable in depth studies of the virus’s effects on all body systems” said Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and one of the RECOVER co-chairs.
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