'Long COVID has really mystified': Western University researchers take steps to unravel long COVID mysteries
CTV
Long COVID can have wide-ranging impacts, but is most commonly associated with brain fog, breathing difficulties and debilitating fatigue.
Long COVID can have wide-ranging impacts, but is most commonly associated with brain fog, breathing difficulties and debilitating fatigue.
"Long COVID has really mystified a lot of physicians and scientists,” according to Dr. Douglas Fraser. Fraser is a researcher with Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, based in London, Ont.
Last year, Fraser and his research team, working out of Research Institute labs at the London Health Sciences Centre Victoria Campus, identified common proteins in the blood of long COVID patients.
That has now resulted in two other research streams. One will be to identify what makes certain people more susceptible to long COVID. The other will be a clinical trial involving 1,200 patients to identify a repurposed drug that could be used to treat long COVID.
"We are funded now to do a worldwide random controlled trial with repurposed medications for the treatment of long COVID,” Fraser told CTV News.
“We've started the process. We've started to design this study, and we hope to be actually in sites around the world in early 2025."
Fraser stressed that identifying a drug that can be repurposed will affect how quickly and how cost-effectively treatments can be delivered.
