Gino Kenny presses for LDN trials for long Covid patients

Thanks Gaeloch and good morning Professor Lambert it's been a fascinating kind of discussion thus far and I think most people that will be listening in today will be kind of saying to themselves that because they contracted Covid it changed their lives because of you know the I suppose the legacy of Covid-19 and so forth so obviously those cohort of people that there's and there's many will be wanting answers from you know their in some ways how their life changed from contracting Covid and then that kind of legacy in relation to chronic fatigue and all the kind of symptoms that comes with long Covid and so forth so my first question Professor Lambert is in relation to the evolution of the virus itself and obviously there was a period from say February 20 to probably March 21 where you know nobody was vaccinated as such is there a kind of like a correlation between those that between the vaccine but now particularly at that period where no where the vaccine wasn't readily available those that contacted Covid-19 and still had symptoms of long Covid still to this day and I don't know if you could you could answer that or that's if you understand my question At first when I when I looked at the data it sort of seemed that we know these vaccines are MRA vaccines they don't prevent infection but they do prevent you from progressing to serious acute illness so vaccines are a good thing the question is if you get a vaccine is it going to prevent you from getting long Covid and and the answer is you know getting vaccination hasn't really decreased the number of patients who you know are at risk for long Covid so that's not the way these vaccines work so if there is a benefit it's a minimal benefit so I think the only benefits vaccines the only benefit of vaccines and it's an important benefit is they they keep you from dying if you get Covid but they don't keep you from getting infected and they don't necessarily keep you from getting long Covid okay thanks thanks very much just my second question and I know you've touched on to it already is it relating to the the low dose nidraxone and and it sounds like the the initial evidence is quite good could you just elaborate on the kind of the the evidence thus far in the pilot project right well LDN has been used for many many years there's studies done back in the days of HIV and AIDS where there was no treatment for HIV and AIDS and placebo controlled trial treating people with LDN or placebo and it improved their quality of life they had lessed so LDN does two things it seems to decrease inflammation and also has some immune modulating effect you know and that's the second problem we haven't even discussed this in terms of the the problems of long Covid it's not just the brain inflammation the second problem is patients have some kind of an immune damage they have some kind of immune exhaustion as part of this process as well so LDN is focusing both on brain inflammation and some immune modulatory effect now based on the pilot that I've done I think the next thing to do is to do some kind of a placebo controlled trial to act in a bigger study um and then cross over people from treatment to placebo you know that after a few months to do a definitive study but I think the reality is is that there there is there is at the present time people are just following patients with long Covid following patients with long Covid bringing them back every three months and some of them just aren't getting better so you know my my approach is to look at the literature and see you know what early information there is um in terms of what is helping patients with long Covid and I think from from from we now have this published and I I think it's preliminary data but I I think it's a it's been used in many other situations before um it's a safe product to use and and and like I said the study that we did showed clinical benefit to patients who had been sick for 333 days on average within two months they started showing improvement um so so so I just think it's out there that this is something we should you know start you know start start start thinking about rather than just continuing to follow patients every three months draw research bloods on them and tell them to them back uh in three months we have to actually start some interventions or start piloting some interventions to support support our patients in Ireland okay and Professor Lambert in in your professional career um have you is there any comparison relation to obviously there is other neurological conditions that have kind of the same kind of I suppose symptoms to those that are suffering from long Covid but is there any you know uh parallel between other conditions that you've witnessed in your professional career in relation to long Covid yeah and I think I I mentioned this before I was asked this question I see patients who are who get a tick-borne infection and here they are years later still unwell with it um as for example I I see farmers I see you know forestry workers I see people from all over Ireland who get bitten by a tick they got a short course of antibiotics and they're coming to see me two years later with a lot of the same symptoms you know in illnesses so so so there are other conditions you know that I think are this and I think the whole issue that's been brought up now there's a big population in Ireland of patients with fibromyalgia patients with chronic fatigue syndrome ME um and I and I hypothesize that some kind of infection might have triggered you know this condition years ago that we have yet to identify so Lyme's one there's other tick-borne infections and I think now we have long long Covid um and I'm hoping the research from long Covid um and I'm hoping the research from long Covid will you know there's no money goes into Lyme research uh hopefully the money that does go into long Covid research will benefit patients with chronic fatigue syndrome ME fibromyalgia and and Lyme disease okay and my final question on a more positive note is in relation to recovery and obviously everybody's different um what's the percentage thus far this may be not completely scientific but thus far that somebody has made a complete recovery in relation to you know the symptoms that they had around long Covid and they've they're back to what they were prior to you know contracting uh um uh Covid-19 so what does recovery look like and what's the rate of recovery in relation to you know the the patients that you've seen right well I really can't give you I really can't give you that data because we're still that this is this is new we're still in the process of analyzing this um one of my uh my doctoral students uh Brendan Dr Brendan Kelly he's doing the UCD uh Newman fellowship in the long Covid he's the one that uh took the lead on many of these publications we're now in the process of looking at that 155 patients um you know from a year ago and we're going to do a follow-up and and do an evaluation of what percentage of those 155 are back to normal and what percentage are are still sick and repeat a questionnaire in them so we're in the process of doing that but the good news is is that you know while it's 30 percent at one year it's less at 15 months it's less at 18 months but there's still a population of patients that just don't get better or they sort of get better and they try to go back into the workplace and they crash again and they get relapse of all their symptoms so it's it's I actually say that you know Covid-19 is a bit of a scary virus you know it damages the brain it damages the immune system and and my you know it's not just the common cold virus so I continue to wear my mask um you know I don't want to catch Covid uh myself you know I don't want to be out of work and I keep on encouraging people to you know to take this virus seriously we're still learning about it and it's not going away to take this virus seriously thanks professor you you you you you you you