UVA Health working long COVID drug treatment

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - The University of Virginia School of Medicine is working with a drug that can potentially help with long COVID.

Long COVID is a medical condition that leaves people with serious health problems.

While there is not a cure yet, researchers in the lab feel hopeful.

“Long COVID is, you know, really big and a complex problem,” Jie Sun, a UVA researcher at the Infectious Disease Division said.

Long COVID is what keeps people sick long after the test comes back negative.

Coughing, shortness of breath, and other symptoms too.

“We did a side by side, study and identify a molecule that could have potentially involved in causing long COVID and these asthmatics. Drug Baricitinib can block the downstream signal.”

That’s a drug already on the market for arthritis.

Now, it’s being studied in the lab for more.

“We propose Baricitinib could be potentially used for treating the Long covid symptoms, but for use of human use, of course, we need in real clinical trials, whether it works or not but, in the lab, we think this is a promising drug,” Sun said.

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