Long COVID Research Moonshot Act would allocate $10B toward illness

The COVID-19 pandemic may be over. However, for millions of Americans still suffering from the lingering health effects of COVID-19 infections, the fight to recover continues.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is hoping to help those Americans who have been diagnosed with a condition known as long COVID, which can follow COVID-19 cases. She is reportedly introducing a bill on Friday, Sept. 27, dedicating $10 billion to help treat the disease and fund research to discover a cure.

Omar’s Long COVID Research Moonshot Act is a companion bill to that of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who introduced his bill to the U.S. Senate in August. Omar said that funding and research are much needed.

“Long COVID is a silent health crisis impacting over twenty-three million Americans, including one million children,” Omar wrote in a statement.

The bill would establish a research program within the National Institutes of Health to better understand the illness by compiling a database, establishing an advisory board, and developing a grant process to speed up clinical trials related to long COVID research.

The legislation would also send money toward public education and care clinics for long COVID, particularly focusing on communities of color and the disabled, who are reportedly disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

Additionally, new treatments developed through the act would need to be more easily accessible and affordable for patients.

Advocates for long COVID patients called on U.S. Congress to pass this bill in the hopes that it will fund vital research.

However, it’s not the first attempt by members of Congress to get long COVID legislation passed. In 2022, the Treat Long COVID Act failed to make it out of committee despite 41 cosponsors, which Omar unsuccessfully reintroduced in 2023. The bill would have prioritized grants to clinics focusing on long COVID and related conditions.

Long COVID is often associated with debilitating fatigue, and it’s been linked to other infectious diseases, according to researchers.