UNMC research long-term effects of COVID-19

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - The University of Nebraska Medical Center is now part of a $450 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study post-COVID symptoms.

Brain fog, fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain, numbness in the hands and feet, and loss of taste and smell — those are symptoms people have reported after having COVID-19.

“There are a lot of different things a person can have in a post-COVID state. That’s part of the thing, we don’t know what symptoms people are going to have and how severe they’re going to be,” said Dr. Andrew Vasey, assistant professor of internal medicine and co-principle investigator of the study.

The study is expected to last four years. And the goal is, in part, to have predictive value.

“Right now, we don’t really understand what causes post-COVID syndrome, so there’s various ideas out there saying it could be related to one thing or the other. But we don’t know that. Part of the study, we want to be able to find out, say are there certain factors that predict if people are going to have these issues?”

By the end of the year, they hope to have more than 80 participants to observe. It’s part of a nationwide effort to find answers.

UNMC researchers say this study will help providers say with more confidence what the long-term effects are and their prevalence.

With a quarter to a third of people who had COVID experiencing long-term effects from the virus, this research at UNMC aims to shed more light on those experiences.

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