Arizona professor: 'We need a national strategy' to prevent long COVID, future pandemics

Long COVID-19 can have devastating effects on individuals and health systems, according to new research from international authors that includes a University of Arizona researcher.

The new paper was a metastudy, meaning it evaluated a range of other studies to get a better understanding of treatment. Long COVID can present many different symptoms, making it difficult to address.

“We don't have any systematic way to extract out of there what's really working," said UA professor Janko Nikolich, adding there are no proven ways to treat the condition, but getting ahead of it can help.

“Treating that original infection is important. What we have seen as well is that vaccinated people have generally had lower levels," He said.

Nikolich says he hopes the paper can help doctors get a better understanding of the condition and that health officials can develop better response strategies to future pandemics.

"This is really, really a disease for which I think we need a national strategy. And we're not close to it because so many people are tired of COVID. They don't want to hear about COVID. They don't want to think about it. And we're, you know, at the stage where we're still dealing with this one, and we have to think also how to be prepared for the next pandemic," Nikolich said.

The review paper was published in The Lancet medical journal.