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Initiatives
The Long COVID Foundation is excited about its' initiatives. Awareness and advocacy are important, but we feel actions are the cornerstone of how we can make real progress. We will push for clean air and masking through campaigns. We want to provide support to COVID Long Haulers in various ways, but our main goal, if able to raise enough funds, is to start integrative lower cost centers so people have access to care that they've been unable to get or afford.
We have big goals for the future, but we will need adequate resources to make this happen. We hope you can help provide support via donations to make these lofty goals happen. Below you can see our current initiatives.
Major Initiative
Long COVID Biomarkers Campaign
The Long COVID Foundation (LCF) and Long COVID Action Project (LCAP) are thrilled to announce the funding goal set by Dr. Johan Van Weyenbergh, and his research team, for Long COVID Biomarkers Validation has been reached. This was accomplished thanks to the incredible support of more than 200 donors, plus separate funding provided directly to Dr. Van Weyenbergh from the PolyBio Research Foundation. We see this as a historic grassroots effort giving researchers an opportunity to validate a Long COVID blood test.
We are pleased to say that the payment of $34,111.75 has been sent to immunologist Dr. Johan Van Weyenbergh at the Rega Institute for Medical Research and his team to work on their transcriptomic study validating testing of Long COVID biomarkers.
“We are elated with the response of the Long COVID community to this vital Long COVID biomarker fundraising campaign,” said Devin Russell of the Long COVID Foundation. “Long Haulers understand the importance of having tests for Long COVID and SARS-CoV-2 viral persistence. We can’t expect good treatments for those suffering with Long COVID until we have good diagnostics, which is something those with HIV lived as well.”
”I’m extremely grateful to LCAP, LCF, PolyBio Foundation and the grassroots community for this vital support to our blood test research on Long COVID biomarkers,” says Dr. Johan Van Weyenbergh. “This funding will allow us to start work on validating the blood biomarkers we previously discovered, by replicating these findings in a new international patient cohort.”
“LCAP asks the NIH director Monica M. Bertagnolli, M.D. to take notice of this vital research and quickly adapt the transcriptomic blood test throughout the RECOVER program to begin measuring SARS-CoV-2 viral load,” said LCAP founder Joshua Pribanic. “The time for action for hundreds of millions of people worldwide, for tens of millions of children who have no Long COVID biomarkers in clinical settings, is now.”
Raising more than $34,000 in a few short weeks, and PolyBio seeing the merit for this science donating funds via their own efforts for this test validation, highlights how important it is to have a blood test and biomarkers for Long COVID. It also shows that this transcriptomic test is one worthy of further study.
We are hopeful that the money raised will be a major turning point in developing a blood test for Long COVID diagnostics and new treatments for those suffering with Long COVID. Thank you everyone for your hard work on this campaign. We will keep you updated on the progress.
Open Initiatives
1. Clean Air & COVID Mitigation in Schools
LCF is working to bring clean air and COVID mitigation to schools. We have been in talks with various schools district administrators, boards, and organizations as we push to reduce airborne illness for kids, teachers, and staff. An Italian Study, showed 6 air changes an hour reduces COVID infections by 82%. This study illustrates how important air filtration is in schools.
2. Billboards
Long COVID needs more awareness and billboards are a good way to raise awareness. Many people still don't know the term Long COVID, nevertheless, the devastating effects of this disease. Billboards are a relatively inexpensive way to bring eyeballs to this major problem. As a 501(c)(3) we do have opportunities for no cost billboards, which we are currently seeking out.
3. Treatment Survey
We are seeking COVID Long Haulers to fill out a treatment survey on common Long COVID used treatments. Most everything is laid out for you, so you don't have to rack your brain to think of all the things you tried. We made it nice and easy in that respect, and that the treatments are broken up into categories. So far we have a couple hundred surveys completed, but we are looking to get to around 1,000+ so that we can provide the information to researchers and practitioners who would be able to utilize the info to direct what treatments may be worth trying or trialing. Please fill out the survey, which you can find in the link below.
4. Long COVID Funding (USA)
Bernie Sanders recently came out with a draft proposal for funding for Long COVID. The appropriations listed in the bill were for $1 billion a year over 10 years. LCF, and many others in the community, find this inadequate and insufficient. It's far too low based on the size and serious of the problem. Approximately, 23.4 million are actively suffering with Long COVID in the United States. They need antivirals, treatments, trials, improved testing, air filtration in public spaces, SSDI, medicaid/medicare coverage, and other support. The kind of support the HIV community receives which is 1.2 million large in the USA and receives $35 billion in domestic funding annually. Long COVID is a much larger problem, that's unstable, and fast growing due to an ever mutating airborne pathogen that has been proven to persist in people.
LCF, along with LCAP, ILCA, and other organizations request a starting point of $28/billion a year for Long Haul COVID. We need your help to request substantial funding so that Long Haulers are not hamstrung by the current ask of $1 billion a year. Having a serious chronic disease underfunded will lead to many suffering from low quality of life and needless deaths. We have seen this with other poorly funded chronic illnesses such as Chronic Lyme, those diagnosed with ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, and others. This needs to stop. As a community we need to ask for better. LCF is doing just that. Help COVID Long Haulers by taking part in this initiative. As of the current, it's important you contact the Senate HELP Committee members and your federal legislators by May 7th (2024). Please read below. ... More information to come.
