Authors: Sumathi Reddy<\/a> Sept. 8, 2022 The Wall Street Journal<\/p>\n\n\n\n The virus that causes Covid-19 can remain in some people\u2019s bodies for a long time.<\/strong> A growing number of scientists think that lingering virus is a root cause of long Covid<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New research <\/a>has found the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the blood of long Covid patients<\/a> up to a year after infection <\/strong>but not in people who have fully recovered from Covid. Virus has also been found in tissues <\/a>including the brain, lungs, and lining of the gut, according to scientists and studies <\/p>\n\n\n\n The findings suggest that leftover reservoirs of virus could be provoking the immune system in some people, causing complications such as blood clots and inflammation, which may fuel certain long Covid symptoms, scientists say. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A group of scientists and doctors are joining forces to focus research on viral persistence and aim to raise $100 million to further the search for treatments. Called the\u00a0Long Covid Research Initiative<\/a>, the group is run by the PolyBio Research Foundation, a Mercer Island, Wash., based nonprofit focused on complex chronic inflammatory diseases.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe really want to understand what\u2019s at the root of [long Covid] and we want to focus on that,\u201d says Amy Proal, a microbiologist at PolyBio and the initiative\u2019s chief scientific officer. Dr. Proal has devoted her career to researching chronic infections after developing myalgic encephalomyelitis\/chronic fatigue syndrome, an illness that shares similar symptoms with long Covid, in her 20s. She has mostly recovered now but has symptoms she manages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three long Covid patients, frustrated at the lack of answers and treatments, have helped connect researchers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLong Covid is this really incredible emergency,\u201d says Henry Scott-Green, one of the patients, a 28-year-old in London who says brain fog, extreme fatigue<\/a> and other debilitating long Covid symptoms prevented him from resuming full-time work as a product manager, though he plans to return soon.<\/strong> \u201cWe\u2019re really trying to run really efficiently and cut out as many layers of bureaucracy as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So far, the group says it has received a pledge of $15 million from Balvi, an investment and direct giving fund established by Vitalik Buterin, the co-creator of the cryptocurrency platform Ethereum.\u00a0een says debilitating long Covid symptoms have prevented him from resuming full-time work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the strongest evidence of viral persistence in long Covid<\/a> patients is a new study by Harvard researchers published Friday in the journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases<\/a>. Researchers detected the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a large majority of 37 long Covid patients in the study and found it in none of 26 patients in a control group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patients\u2019 blood was analyzed up to a year after initial infection, says David R. Walt, a professor of pathology at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School and lead researcher of the study. Dr. Walt isn\u2019t currently involved with the long Covid initiative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A year after infection, some patients had levels of viral spike protein that were as high as they did earlier in their illness, Dr. Walt says. Such levels long after initial infection suggest that a reservoir of active virus is continuing to produce the spike protein because the spike protein typically doesn\u2019t have a long lifetime, <\/strong>he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Walt plans to test antivirals such as Paxlovid <\/a>or remdesivir to see if the drugs help clear the virus and eliminate spike protein from the blood. He says it\u2019s possible that for some people, the normal course of medication isn\u2019t enough to clear the virus. Such cases may require \u201ca much longer exposure to these antivirals to fully clear,\u201d says Dr. Walt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the research group\u2019s goals is to find a way for people to identify whether they continue to have the virus in their bodies. There is no easy way to determine this now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Long Covid patients experience such a wide range of long-term symptoms<\/a> that scientists think there is likely more than one cause, however. Some cases may be fueled by organ damage, for instance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet consensus is growing around the idea that lingering virus plays a significant role in long Covid. <\/strong>Preliminary research<\/a> from immunologist Akiko Iwasaki\u2019s laboratory at Yale University documented T or B cell activity in long Covid patients\u2019 blood, suggesting that patients\u2019 immune systems are continuing to react to virus in their bodies. Dr. Iwasaki is a member of the new initiative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n