Long COVID is currently a hot topic within global research. But who is actually carrying out this research? One such person is Vasileios Nittas. He is an epidemiology postdoc at the University of Zurich and has suffered from Long COVID himself.
Vasileios Nittas, what was the research into Long COVID like at the start?
When we first started the research, we had no idea of the direction we’d end up going. Even though we knew there were probably long-term effects, we still didn’t know what they involved. I would describe the research approach as exploratory and intuitive.
Even now – two years later – the evidence is still patchy. A lot of uncertainties remain. This is intensified by the fact that Long COVID is a multifaceted disease with a lot of different symptoms. This makes it even more difficult to come up with clear definitions.
“Long COVID is a multifaceted disease with a lot of different symptoms, making the research both difficult and exciting”.
Isn’t that sometimes frustrating?
It’s true, it can be frustrating and chaotic at times, but it’s also exciting, fascinating, and continually evolving, and this outweighs the negatives. I always keep patient wellbeing in mind. I want to make a contribution to improving their lives and to finding treatment options to help them with this condition. At the end of the day, I experienced for myself what it means to be affected by Long COVID, and this continues to motivate me today.
You experienced Long COVID yourself. How are you doing now, and what were, or are, your symptoms?
I developed long-term effects at a very early stage of the pandemic. Nobody was taking about Long COVID at that time. The symptoms started shortly after my acute infection and lasted for several months. These included sensory disturbances, tingling, light dizziness, and headaches. I didn’t know what was wrong with me and I went for a lot of tests. I’m convinced that treatment would be handled better and in a more coordinated way today.
Physiotherapy helped, and I’m doing a lot better now. The symptoms do still occur from time to time, but less often than before. Long COVID is like a rollercoaster – and so is the research involved!
“I always keep patient wellbeing in mind – I want to make a contribution to improving their lives”.
When did you start carrying out research into Long COVID? Before or after you became unwell?
It was both at the same time. I’d had the symptoms for around three or four months when I started working on the Long COVID projects, but I didn’t think that what I was experiencing was Long COVID. I realized that later on.
Can you tell us more about the projects you’re working on?
There are essentially two projects I’m involved with. The first project is a report for the FOPH, which we produce every two months. This report summarizes all the new findings relating to Long COVID. We review new publications, read them, and extract the data we need for the report. It’s mainly about reading the literature.
The second project is all about involving individuals affected by Long COVID in the research. To this end, we've launched the very first “Citizen Science” project, and together with 30 people affected by Long COVID, we’ve tried to define the research priorities they consider the most urgent in relation to the disease. The project has now been completed, and the recommendations published.
“There are still a lot of gaps that need to be filled in when it comes to treatment and rehabilitation”.
What have you learned so far?
To be honest, there are still a lot of gaps that need to be filled in. We know that around 20 percent of people end up developing longer-term symptoms following a COVID-19 infection. This depends on a range of different factors such as previous diseases, severity of the acute infection, age, etc.
We also know that Long COVID is a multifaceted disease. This makes it difficult to say: “that’s definitely Long COVID”. Nevertheless, we already know a lot about the symptoms, and the literature paints a relatively clear picture in this area.
Things are a bit different when it comes to prevention and treatment, however. Here, we simply don’t know enough to be able to make any concrete assertions. Recently, a few papers were published that looked into the influence of diet on Long COVID, but there’s still insufficient evidence to confirm any official correlations. Our aim must be to find treatments and rehabilitation methods that improve the lives of those affected by the disease.
What are the plans for the future? How about international collaboration?
International collaboration is extremely important. We can all really benefit from one another. However, both of the projects I’m working on are focused on Switzerland. Interest in the pandemic is decreasing, but it’s important to stay on the ball and make sure we don’t lose momentum in our research into Long COVID. We expect to see more studies published soon in the area of treatment and rehabilitation. We’re looking forward to reading them!
