'Long COVID has really mystified': Western University researchers take steps to unravel long COVID mysteries

Long COVID can have wide-ranging impacts, but is most commonly associated with brain fog, breathing difficulties and debilitating fatigue.

"Long COVID has really mystified a lot of physicians and scientists,” according to Dr. Douglas Fraser. Fraser is a researcher with Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, based in London, Ont.

Last year, Fraser and his research team, working out of Research Institute labs at the London Health Sciences Centre Victoria Campus, identified common proteins in the blood of long COVID patients.

That has now resulted in two other research streams. One will be to identify what makes certain people more susceptible to long COVID. The other will be a clinical trial involving 1,200 patients to identify a repurposed drug that could be used to treat long COVID.

"We are funded now to do a worldwide random controlled trial with repurposed medications for the treatment of long COVID,” Fraser told CTV News.

“We've started the process. We've started to design this study, and we hope to be actually in sites around the world in early 2025."

Fraser stressed that identifying a drug that can be repurposed will affect how quickly and how cost-effectively treatments can be delivered.

Western University researcher, Dr. Douglas Fraser, said trials for Long COVID treatments should begin in 2025. (Gerry Dewan/CTV News London)

“Because we're also looking at third-world nations, low-income countries,” he said.

“We want to find therapies that are easy to use, that are available and that are affordable.”

Medical teams in London were among the first to identify a case of COVID-19 in Canada, and researchers in the city were among the first to identify long COVID.

Fraser has been at the forefront of that long COVID research since the SARS-CoV-2 virus landed at our doorstep over four years ago.

"The first COVID-19 patients appeared in London, Ont. in March of 2020,” Fraser said.

“We are still seeing patients that were affected very early on, suffering from long COVID now. So, this is a post-viral syndrome, which can last for years."

The projects are being funded by the Schmidt Initiative for Long COVID (SILC).

SILC was started by Eric and Wendy Schmidt. Eric Schmidt was CEO of Google for more than a decade. The Schmidt’s have been supporters of the Western University long COVID research from its early days.