The President of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Gerald Haug, still sees a considerable need for research on Long Covid. “Long Covid is a severely underestimated problem with only limited treatment options so far,” said Haug of the German Press Agency in Mainz. He himself knows affected “young sporty people who don’t even have an hour of energy a day”. “The causes and the different symptoms are not yet fully understood.”
According to an analysis carried out for the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 17 million people in Europe were affected by long-COVID symptoms in the first two years of the pandemic. The research suggests that women are twice as likely to develop Long Covid than men. In addition, the long-Covid risk increases drastically after a severe corona infection, the treatment of which required hospitalization.
An institute in Rostock, which claims to be unique in Germany, wants to contribute to better handling of the late effects of corona in the future. The initiator is the pulmonary specialist Jördis Frommhold, who is regarded throughout Germany as an expert on Long Covid disease and is President of the new Long Covid Medical Association.
Haug is also a director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz. Independent of economic or political interests, the National Academy of Sciences deals with important future social issues from a scientific point of view. She communicates the results to politicians and the public and represents the issues nationally and internationally.
