Saxony: 2.5 million euros for long-Covid study at Leipzig University

Dresden (dpa/sn) - Saxony is funding a research study on long-Covid disease at Leipzig University with 2.

Saxony: 2.5 million euros for long-Covid study at Leipzig University

Dresden (dpa/sn) - Saxony is funding a research study on long-Covid disease at Leipzig University with 2.5 million euros. The comparison of patients with unaffected test persons gives reason to expect more precise insights into the risk of the disease and the prognosis, the Ministry of Science in Dresden announced on Tuesday. Research into Long Covid "is just beginning," said study leader Markus Löffler, director of the Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology (IMISE) at the University of Leipzig, who has been working on the topic since 2021. "The disease mainly affects people of working age, often regardless of the severity of the disease."

The neurological and psychological long-term consequences of a Covid infection are to be researched by the end of 2025 and recorded in patients from all waves of infection since 2021. The health data of people who have been infected are compared with those of non-infected people. Cognitive and psychological long-term consequences are being examined in order to be able to provide better therapy in the future and, ideally, to prevent complications.

The German patient guidelines define complaints that persist for more than four weeks after the corona infection as “Long Covid”, and they last longer than twelve weeks as a “Post Covid” subtype.

According to the ministry, health data from people with Long Covid who have been taking part in the Löffler study, which has been running since 2011, are particularly meaningful because they can be compared with the data collected before the illness. Many of the 10,000 people involved, who are being followed up regularly, have gone through Covid infection and some of them Long Covid.