New $40 million NIH study hopes to solve mysteries behind children's long Covid-19 - CNN

to its interdisciplinary clinic for children and adolescents with long Covid-19.

The Bruggers are optimistic, but doctors still don't know a lot about long Covid-19 in young people.

Ben Katz, who has treated kids with long Covid as a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Ann & Robert H.

So, Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., in partnership with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced Tuesday that they will start a $40 million study on long Covid and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C.

Bill Kapogiannis, program director in the NIH's Maternal and Pediatric Infectious Disease Branch, said they've been trying to understand MIS-C and also the short, medium, and long term effects of Covid-19 in kids and adults since last spring.

"We don't even have a great definition for it in adults, and about children we don't even know what the definition should be of what we're looking for," Kapogiannis said.

It's believed anywhere between 2% and 10% have long Covid, but the potential number of children who have long Covid may be much bigger than the number hospitals are treating.

"I'm guessing it's just the tip of the iceberg," said Dr.

Alexandra Yonts, an infectious diseases specialist and director of the long Covid clinic that started up in May at Children's National Hospital.

Since symptoms vary, it may be difficult for parents or pediatricians to notice when a child has this condition.

The help can't come soon enough.

"A lot of them come in there with just feeling lost and like they don't know what's wrong and they've lost everything that was normal about their lives," Yonts said.

At Yonts' clinic, to better understand what symptoms doctors need to treat, all patients are screened, get lab work, and then get a multidisciplinary team to address their different symptoms.