If you have symptoms after recovering from COVID-19, you may be eligible for Post COVID-19 clinical trials. These clinical trials are working to understand post COVID-19 symptoms as well as produce potential treatments to these symptoms. This article will provide an overview of post COVID-19 symptoms and learn more about clinical trials related to post COVID-19.

What is Post COVID-19?

According to the Mayo Clinic, post COVID-19 syndrome or long COVID-19 can occur when a patient is diagnosed with COVID-19 and experiences symptoms even after their initial recovery. People can describe this condition as long COVID-19 and the patients suffering from post COVID-19 symptoms can be referred to as long-haulers. People of advanced age and with serious medical conditions are more likely to suffer from post COVID-19 related symptoms.

Symptoms of post COVID-19 syndrome include fatigue, shortness of breath/difficulty breathing, cough, headache, loss of smell or taste and others. These symptoms can affect the quality of life of patients that have recovered initially from COVID-19. These symptoms can be around for a few weeks to several months after infection. Scientists are continuing to learn more about post COVID-19 syndrome which is why post COVID-19 clinical trials are so important to learn more about and find a cure for post COVID-19.

What is a clinical trial?

Clinical trials are an important part for research and development in finding a cure for a condition such as post COVID-19 syndrome. Clinical trials are conducted by many types of institutions including universities and pharmaceutical companies. These can vary from a study that looks to understand the symptoms of post COVID-19 syndrome to a clinical trial that measures the effectiveness of a potential treatment to long COVID-19.

Post COVID-19 clinical trials that measure safety and efficacy of a potential treatment are important because they are moving research forward to a possible cure. These clinical trials will be broken up into several phases, ranging from 1 to 5. Phase 1 clinical trials are the first phase where the potential treatment is tested. Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials will continue to test the potential treatment and Phase 4 and 5 clinical trials will finalize testing and prepare results to get FDA approval. As you are reviewing possible post COVID-19 clinical trials, it is important that you consider what phase the clinical trial is at.

Finally, clinical trials are structured around running an experiment to see if a potential treatment is effective or not. For post COVID-19 clinical trials, this means that there will be several groups of patients that participate in a clinical trial. Some will be given the potential treatment and some will be given a placebo, which will look like the treatment but is not. This setup is necessary to measure the effectiveness of an experimental drug in potentially curing a patient with post COVID-19 syndrome. Sometimes, clinical trials will have open label extensions which will allow a person participating in a post COVID-19 clinical trial to receive the treatment if they are first placed in a placebo group. Understanding the structure of post COVID-19 clinical trials will help you determine if you are interested in participating in a post COVID-19 clinical trial.

How can you participate in post COVID-19 clinical trials?

If you are suffering from post COVID-19 syndrome, then you may be eligible for a clinical trial for post COVID-19. Many of these clinical trials can be found by going to clinicaltrials.gov.

Some of the considerations that you should take when deciding whether you want to participate in a post COVID-19 clinical trial include understanding the length of the clinical trial, how many visits you will need to participate in, and if you are offered reimbursement for travel and other costs you may incur to participate. For the post COVID-19 clinical trial that Leapcure is supporting, you will receive any travel and logistical support if you are selected to participate and will find that the visits are manageable. If you have more questions about post COVID-19 clinical trials, feel free to reach out to Leapcure for more information on the clinical trial that we are supporting.