Onur Boyman

Some people continue to suffer the long-term effects of Covid-19 months after they have had the infection. Symptoms include fatigue, breathlessness, and brain fog. The Federal Office of Public Health calls this “post Covid-19 condition”, also known as Long Covid. The phenomenon has left medical professionals scratching their collective heads. The symptoms are varied and hard to quantify. Doctors often do not know how to diagnose or treat it. Many with Long Covid have to take long-term leave from work. To date, over 5,000 people with Long Covid in Switzerland have claimed on their disability insurance. “Those affected are hit hard,” says Onur Boyman, professor of clinical immunology at the University of Zurich. Unfortunately, symptoms are often easily dismissed as a psychosomatic condition. A team of researchers led by Boyman has now shown in a study published in the world-renowned “Science” magazine that a part of our immune system called the complement system plays an important role in Long Covid. “In patients with Long Covid, the complement system no longer returns to the resting state as it should,” Boyman explains. The researchers were able to prove that excessive complement system activity causes damage to different cells in the body, including red blood cells, platelets and blood vessels. This discovery paves the way for diagnosis by blood test. It also opens up new avenues for the development of more targeted therapies, says Boyman. But more research is necessary, and this will take time. Nevertheless, Boyman and his Zurich colleagues have now removed some of the stigma attached to the condition.