University of Derby's gives hope to long Covid sufferers

The University of Derby giving fresh hope to long covid sufferers, 5 years since the pandemic, with ground-breaking research underway.

Scientists there are investigating whether anti-viral drugs, could provide an effective treatment for long Covid. It's the first study of it’s kind in the UK.

Professor Mark Faghy tells us more:

"So the most recent trial that we've got is a feasibility trial of using antiviral medication to hopefully improve outcomes for people with long COVID. So it's the first UK antiviral trial and we have been so incredibly lucky to be able to run this locally.

"The hope is to scale it up moving forward in the future, but currently we're giving 5 days of intravenous antiviral medication to people with long COVID - it's the medication we're using in clinical practise already for people who are admitted to hospital with COVID-19. So we're trying to take that medication to people who are in the community setting to see if we get a resolution of their symptoms, but that requires them going to hospital for five days of treatment, which some people would feel comfortable doing. Some people not. So the first question is, is that a feasible option?

"But essentially, they're with us for about 60 days and there's a number of routine and very detailed investigations into the kind of pathophysiology before and after the intervention, and so we're really trying to understand, you know, what their symptoms look like, how they fluctuate, what might be causing them, how well their heart, lungs and muscles are working.

"We're edging towards 3/4 of the data collection for the entire project. We've actually recruited our last participant in Derby now, which is great news and there's been some really positive signs. So we're really hopeful that we might be able to scale that forward to a national randomised controlled trial in the coming months."

To find out more and keep up to date with what the University of Derby is up to, here's their website.

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