Patient advocates and physicians are growing frustrated about the lack of treatments for long COVID-19 despite more than $1 billion of federal investments and continuous research, USA Today reported Feb. 26.
More than 16 million people in the U.S. have long COVID, and about a quarter are disabled by the condition, according to federal estimates.
New research on long COVID is published about once a week, according to the report, including studies on potential medications and how it presents in children. In late 2020, Congress granted $1.2 billion toward long COVID research, and the federal government is continuing to plug millions of dollars into the effort.
Gary Gibbons, MD, director of the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, is leading a $1.6 billion research project on possible treatments and what causes symptoms. He told USA Today scientific progress is moving as fast as it safely can.
As there are no approved therapies for long COVID, though some physicians and patients want faster results.
"The urgency and finances are not meeting the moment," Sawyer Blatz, a 27-year-old who has tried more than 50 medications, supplements and exercise regimens over the past year and who co-founded a group called Long COVID Moonshot, told USA Today.