Australia: $4.7 million for UNSW researchers to investigate long COVID

SNT Gatchaman

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
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https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/ne...or-unsw-researchers-to-investigate-long-covid

The newly funded projects will support the development of tools and therapies to enhance support for people living with long COVID.
Three UNSW Sydney projects have been awarded funding under the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to improve the quality of care for people affected by long COVID. The newly funded initiatives will work on developing new diagnostic and monitoring tools and therapies.

Dean of UNSW Medicine & Health, Professor Cheryl Jones, said the grants would drive critical research into long COVID and help transform patient care.

“Long COVID remains a significant challenge, and research is essential to developing innovative treatments and interventions,” Prof. Jones said. “These projects will deepen our understanding of the condition and pave the way for therapies that improve recovery and quality of life for people living with persistent symptoms.”

The NHMRC is administering the grants on behalf of the Australian government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Find out more about the MRFF’s Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 Grant Opportunity
 
Dr Carolina Sandler from the School of Health Sciences at UNSW Medicine & Health was awarded $2,998,859 to support better education and training for health professionals treating patients with long COVID. Called the SAGE Trial – Scalable Allied Health and General Practitioner Responses to Long-COVID in primary care – it will upskill GPs, practice nurses, allied health professionals and patients in diagnosing and caring for long COVID.

Symptom-focused physical rehabilitation and psychological support strategies have been shown in international studies to improve quality of life and function and reduce symptoms of long COVID. However, these strategies are yet to be trialled as an integrated, holistic intervention.

“SAGE addresses a critical gap in care for Australians living with long COVID by developing and evaluating a multidisciplinary model of care in primary care with the goal of improving function, quality of life, and confidence in care,” Dr Sandler said. “The trial has the potential to transform national guidelines and provide a framework that can be scaled nationally, ensuring the health system meets the needs of people with PASC.”
 
Dr Chan Phetsouphanh from the Kirby Institute and UNSW Medicine & Health was awarded $984,531 for investigating biomarkers and driver mechanisms of long COVID. The project will seek to identify biological signs and understand underlying processes in the body that lead to long-lasting symptoms after infection.

“Understanding the pathogenesis of long COVID is crucial for developing rational and evidence-based therapies, which will ultimately help to alleviate the burden of disease caused by long COVID,” said Dr Phetsouphanh.
 
Associate Professor Lucette Cysique from the Kirby Institute and UNSW Medicine & Health was awarded $725,482 for a project aiming to identify key factors contributing to the incidence and prognosis of long COVID in large international and national cohort studies.

“There is strong evidence to indicate long COVID is essentially another example of Post-Infective Fatigue Syndrome (PIFS),” said A/Prof. Cysique. “Like PIFS, the main symptoms of long COVID are fatigue, post-exertional malaise, cognitive difficulties, often referred to as ‘brain fog’, sleep disturbance, and breathlessness.

“There is ongoing debate among the community and some researchers about whether PIFS is the best framework for understanding long COVID.

“Our project will directly address this question, providing unique insights into similarities and differences in the syndromal conditions and identify common factors that impact prognosis.”
 
The lion's share ($3m) goes to research into "Symptom-focused physical rehabilitation and psychological support strategies" lead by Dr Caroline Sandler PhD (UNSW), BSc (Health & Sport, UNSW), Accredited Exercise Physiologist

Dr Carolina Sandler is an accredited exercise physiologist and clinical researcher in the School of Health Sciences. She is part of the Fatigue Research program at the Kirby Institute working with Professor Andrew Lloyd. Her areas of interest are post-infective fatigue states and cancer survivorship.
 
What a sad waste of money and effort. Why does every country and rehab research team think they have to keep re-researching psychobehavioural rubbish? All they are doing with their so called research is tweaking what is essentially a failed model. 4.7 million dollars allocated, and less than a million of that for biomedical research. I'm sorry, Australia. What a waste.
 
Sorry world. But not in the slightest bit surprised. This is the reality here too, always has been.

Clearly the Anglosphere is just a complete fucking disaster on this. We created the disaster, and are doing everything we can to perpetuate and exacerbate it. Don't rely on us to save you.

She is part of the Fatigue Research program at the Kirby Institute working with Professor Andrew Lloyd.

All you need to know about the value of this work. Just condemning another generation of patients to failure and despair and worse.
 
I just don't understand how it isn't crystal clear to everyone at this point that exercise doesn't help treat ME or LC.

If this wasn't ideological, it would have ceased to be recommended everywhere after the PACE reanalysis. Instead we now have nearly another decade of low quality studies pulling the exact same bullshit tricks as ever.

If we ever get out of this catch-22 and there's a breakthrough, a lot of people are going to look very gullible indeed.
 
Dr Chan Phetsouphanh from the Kirby Institute and UNSW Medicine & Health was awarded $984,531 for investigating biomarkers and driver mechanisms of long COVID.

Relevant forum threads:


 
Symptom-focused physical rehabilitation and psychological support strategies have been shown in international studies to improve quality of life and function and reduce symptoms of long COVID. However, these strategies are yet to be trialled as an integrated, holistic intervention.
Those are two blatant lies, and actually contradict one another. No system can deliver good outcomes by lying so much about what they do, this is completely incompatible with the general mission of health care, and specifically of the aims of this program. Might as well just go to a casino and lose it all in two minutes. It would literally be preferable here, that's how bad this whole disaster is.

If we lived in sane societies, other people with zero relation to us or any of this would sue the people responsible for so obviously mismanaging research funding. This is insulting to the entire idea of what science is about. It's not supposed to be used to prop up failed ideologies and flatter the egos of people who are completely wrong and have ruined millions of lives in the process.
 
Does anyone else remember the ‘totaliser’ type thing on programmes like blue Peter etc where they were raising money

It feels like one thing we could be doing to make a point in this is having totals for money thrown away onto either iterated research into something already proven as a dead end

Or apps or services only offering treatments that harm

Where it is gov funding

And particularly after a set date where new guideline would have made it clear this path was useless before anyone signed it off

It really is shocking the bs of ‘can’t afford’ for basic essential things that are common sense or just saving a life etc

When what is done instead costs exponentially times more - whether it’s people going in for a procedure to be done in a day getting trapped into hospital for months ‘because someone questioned it’ or courses or apps so useless no one completes them or if they do they end up harmed

I suspect now some of these things are used to to back cover and pretend that it isn’t 100% that someone over working gets iller or no adjustments etc by suggesting there’s always a ‘can’t prove it unless you do the same thing again that doesn’t work but has a different name’

Which is still stupid because people being mild and having to have smaller adjustments vs harming them to the point of losing independence and needing care

Is only ‘money saving’ as long as you make em so ill they did it can’t fight enough that the fight costs the other side money

And you are talking about being in a context where they and their families productivity they would have had doesn’t matter to you

I find it bamboozling, other than it showing how concentrated power is and how happy to be callously indifferent those after a cushy number for themselves are - and to how extreme an extent society will sponsor that being directed at a vulnerable group as long as it ‘keeps those types out of everyone else’s hair’
 
In brighter news relating to this fund, an OMF email sent today said —

We are very pleased to share that Dr Christopher Armstrong and his team at Open Medicine Foundation's (OMF's) Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration have been awarded nearly $1 million ($999,977.50) through the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) Stream 1 grant, for the project Energy inefficiency in Long COVID and ME/CFS.
 
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