The RECOVER Initiative is the National Institutes of Health’s answer to the 7.5% of American adults now living with post-COVID symptoms, including brain fog, breathlessness, fatigue, chest discomfort, dizziness, loss of taste and smell, and numb hands and feet. Backed by nearly $450 million, the nationwide study is designed to support local research institutions in unraveling the mysterious illness for better treatments and health outcomes. The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) is now part of that network, and its focus is on clarifying COVID-19’s long-term effects and their prevalence in both adults and children.*

UNMC’s hopes for the study

According to Andrew Vasey, M.D., an assistant professor of Internal Medicine at UNMC and co-principal investigator of the adult portion of the study, “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.” 

Eligible participants are age 19 and older, and include both those who have had COVID-19 and those who have not. Eligible pediatric participants include infants and children up to 18 years of age, along with young adults up to 25 years old who still see pediatric doctors. 

“We don’t know the long-term effects of COVID-19 on children’s health and development,” said Dr. Russell McCulloh, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at UNMC and lead investigator for the pediatric branch of the study. 

“We know that many children suffer persistent symptoms from COVID-19 that can last weeks or months, in addition to those who have suffered severe acute illness from multi-system inflammatory syndrome.”

Participating in RECOVER

David Warren, Ph.D., co-principal investigator of the study and an assistant professor in UNMC’s Department of Neurological Sciences, explains that there’s still “a lot of disagreement” over what constitutes Long COVID symptoms and how widespread they are. Understanding post-COVID “will help us understand the future of American health care, since most Americans have had it.”

Vasey says that they hope to enroll at least 85 people for the adult branch of the study by fall of this year. Participants may need to visit the UNMC study site two to four times a year to: 

• Update health and symptom history, 
• Have a medical check-up, and 
• Undergo various tests. 

Treatment is not included in the study, but test results may be provided to participants’ primary doctors.

More information on RECOVER can be found at the official study site. For adult eligibility, email recover.study@unmc.edu; for child eligibility, email recoverpeds@unmc.edu.   

*Caracta, B. (2022, June 20). UNMC research long-term effects of COVID-19. 6 News WOWT. https://www.wowt.com/2022/06/21/unmc-research-long-term-effects-covid-19