Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, Director for NIH testified before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee on April 28, 2021 to discuss The Long Haul: Forging a Path Through the Lingering Effects of COVID-19.
As Dr. Collins reported, “Last year, NIH outlined the research needed to not only understand the long term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection but also to try to find treatments or prevention strategies. Congress appropriated $1.15 billion for the work in December 2020. The goal is to design a fast, flexible comprehensive research initiative.
As he explained, first we have to understand the basics as to how frequently SARS-CoV-2 survivors experience long term effects and the correlation between the severity of the initial illness and the likelihood of ongoing symptoms.
NIH needs to look at existing longitudinal community-based cohorts. Examples include the Framingham Heart Study and the All of Us study since these groups already include tens of thousands of participants with years of clinical data, scans and outcomes before, during, and after some of the participants were infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Secondly, NIH wants to leverage COVID-specific patient cohorts. Tens of thousands of Americans have signed up for research trials to test vaccines and therapeutics and are already being meticulously monitored for COVID-19.
Next, he explained that we need a special cohort for children and adolescents. We know that rarely when some children are exposed to SARS-CoV-2, they develop a serious disorder known as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). but they can also suffer from post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2, so we need to know more about how this impacts their physical or neurocognitive development.
Lastly, we will use rapid data sharing in order to communicate findings quickly back to the patient and the research community, plus engage the best minds to interpret the results. By conducting studies to better understand the clinical spectrum and biology underlying recovery from acute SARS-CoV-2 infections and in parallel with studies on how to provide new approaches to treatment and prevention, great strides can be made towards helping the population suffering now with the lingering effects of COVID-19.
Go to https://energycommerce.house.gov, then click on Health Subcommittee Hearing for April 28,2921 for further information on the hearing.