Long Covid
What is Long COVID?
The World Health Organization defines Long COVID, also known as Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) and Post COVID-19 condition (PCC) as a
“condition that occurs in individuals with a history of probable or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, usually three months from the onset of COVID-19, with symptoms that last for at least two months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis. Common symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, cognitive dysfunction, and others that generally impact daily functioning. Symptoms may be new onset following initial recovery or persist from the acute phase. They may also fluctuate or relapse over time.”
Current research
In June 2024, we received funding from the Australian Government’s 2023 Medical Research Future Fund PASC grant to develop a plan for a national adaptive platform trial to test potential treatments for Long COVID in Australia. As part of this project, we conducted an up-to-date review of the evidence on Long COVID treatments.
To enhance this effort, we partnered with the Australian Living Evidence Collaboration (ALEC) at Monash University and the Epistemonikos COVID-19 L.OVE (Living Overview of Evidence) database to create a continuously updated review, known as a living evidence synthesis. Before this collaboration, each team had been independently developing its own approach to reviewing and updating Long COVID treatment evidence.
ALEC led Australia’s national living guidelines for treating COVID-19 and Long COVID from 2020 to 2023. In 2024, they also received funding from the 2023 Medical Research Future Fund PASC grant to continue updating their Long COVID treatment review to inform the adaptive platform trial.
Epistemonikos’ COVID-19 L.OVE is the largest open-access database of COVID-19-related evidence. Established in 2020, it provides a structured, continuously updated, and easily accessible repository of research studies, including those on Long COVID.
Through this collaboration, we streamlined our efforts, making our work more efficient and ensuring that our findings on Long COVID treatments are openly accessible worldwide. Together, we created a single database of all published trials on Long COVID treatments and established a system to update it monthly, keeping it current with the latest evidence.
Below is a link to the Living Overview of the Evidence (L.OVE) database:
Updates
Latest update
The Bond and ALEC teams have completed full text screening of all studies published up to the end of January and have included a total of 142 RCTs. These trials were identified through a comprehensive systematic search on PubMed, Cochrane and Embase, plus pre-print servers. The search is also supplemented with updates from long COVID reviews that are being conducted by EPPI-Centre and Epistemonikos.
Previous updates
Potential Long COVID Treatments
Potential interventions to treat long COVID were identified through a multi-component process that included surveys of people living with long COVID, clinicians (allied health and medical) who care for people with long COVID and literature searches of published and grey matter. The long list of potential interventions was then iteratively narrowed down through evidence review and ranking surveys of people with Long COVID and clinicians. The top 14 ranked interventions from these surveys were then combined and evidence summaries were written for each one.
The following workbook containing the top 14 ranked interventions was created as a guide for those (both patients and clinicians) attending the priority setting workshop. The aim of the workshop was to select the most promising treatments for long COVID that should be included in a planned clinical trial.