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Speaker 1: Let's talk about long COVID. A new study has got

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Speaker 1: to the heart of it, undertaken by collaboration between Semary,

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Speaker 1: Union of Queensland Flinda's UNI as well and this hopefully

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Speaker 1: the findings will improve future disease management. Professor David Lynn,

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Speaker 1: Professor of Systems Immunology, Semary and Flinda's on the line. David,

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Speaker 1: good morning, thanks for your time.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Matthew, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: What have you learned?

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Speaker 2: So we've followed a cohort of patients who are unfortunately

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Speaker 2: continuing to suffer from long COVID up to at least

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Speaker 2: two years after they were initially infected. We applied a

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Speaker 2: variety of different advanced technologies, first of all, to measure

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Speaker 2: what was happening in their blood in terms of what

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Speaker 2: genes are turned on and off in individuals with long COVID,

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Speaker 2: particularly those suffering from cardiovascular symptoms or symptoms of the heart.

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Speaker 2: What we found was that there was an increased expression

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Speaker 2: of genes involved in flammation in those individuals with those

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Speaker 2: cardiovascular and symptoms. At that gene expression level, our colleagues

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Speaker 2: at the University of Queensland then looked at a kind

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Speaker 2: of protein level and looked at these things called sider kinds.

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Speaker 2: So spider kinds are proteins of the immune system that

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Speaker 2: control inflammation, and again they saw the same thing that

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Speaker 2: at low but detectable levels. Using a kind of advanced

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Speaker 2: technology called nanotechnology, they were able to detect higher levels

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Speaker 2: of these side of kinds in the blood of patients

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Speaker 2: with this long COVID with cardiovascular symptoms. And what they

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Speaker 2: then were able to show is if you take the

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Speaker 2: blood or the serum, which is a kind of part

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Speaker 2: of the blood after you've sin and don and put

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Speaker 2: it on cart cells which are called cardiomer sites, it

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Speaker 2: affects the function of those cells. So you can actually

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Speaker 2: see these cells kind of pulsing like a heart in

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Speaker 2: the dish. And if you add therem that contains these proteins,

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Speaker 2: it affects the function of those selves. So you don't

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Speaker 2: see that in people that don't have these symptoms or

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Speaker 2: you know, have recovered well from long COVID. So it

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Speaker 2: provides a new insight into why people with this kind

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Speaker 2: of vascular symptoms associated with long COVID, because you can

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Speaker 2: have a whole different array of symptoms in long COVID

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Speaker 2: might have those effects and provide some ideas as to

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Speaker 2: how you might diagnose and or treat them in the future.

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Speaker 1: It's complicated by the fact that COVID appears to be

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Speaker 1: so different. I mean, it's not like the flu. It's

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Speaker 1: different in every individual, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely? And obviously it's changing as there are different variants

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Speaker 2: of the virus as well. So it seems like long

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Speaker 2: COVID was much more prevalent after the first variant from Wuhan,

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Speaker 2: and have thankfully got a little less common more recent variant.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, it seems to be very very variable between

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Speaker 2: some people. Some people will get it and recover fine.

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Speaker 2: Other people have those really debilitating symptoms that are persisting

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Speaker 2: for years after infection.

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Speaker 1: That's quite scary. I spoke with somebody in the last month,

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Speaker 1: I reckon six weeks certainly, where someone studying COVID who

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Speaker 1: said the chances of developing long COVID seem consistent with

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Speaker 1: the number of times and individual contracts covid. Is that correct?

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Speaker 1: Is that showing up that the more times you get COVID,

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Speaker 1: the more likelihood you are to get long covid.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there does seem to be an association between the

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Speaker 2: numbers of times you've been infected and increasing and that risk.

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Speaker 2: Vaccination though, does provide good protection against both getting severely ill,

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Speaker 2: but also seems to provide some protection against developing long

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Speaker 2: COVID as well. And as I said, it seems to

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Speaker 2: be quite dependent on the variant of the virus that

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Speaker 2: you get as well. So there's a whole complex, uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, plethora of factors that seem to mean that

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Speaker 2: some people are at increased risk than other people.

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Speaker 1: Is the cardiovascular part of it that you've been examining particularly,

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Speaker 1: is that the biggest risk of long COVID or in

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Speaker 1: terms of I suppose percentages, is that what people suffer.

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Speaker 2: The most, No, So that's probably you know, it's one

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Speaker 2: of the common symptoms associated with the other ones, including

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Speaker 2: you know, brain fog as is often referred to, or

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Speaker 2: cognition impairment. Fatigue is the most predominant thing that's reported.

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Speaker 2: So the curry of vascular symptoms is definitely a subgroup

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Speaker 2: of people. And I think what this means is that

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Speaker 2: the launch over as a syndrome is actually a collection

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Speaker 2: of different syndromes, likely with you know, different reasons and

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Speaker 2: for each of those different symptoms. Rather than being kind

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Speaker 2: of one uniform disease.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder how far we are into understanding this, David,

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Speaker 1: is it you know, would you say five eighty percent? In?

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Speaker 1: It seems that every couple of months aside there's a

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Speaker 1: new discovery.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this, we're still learning an awful lot about this

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Speaker 2: this condition. Unfortunately, it is as I said, very complicated

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Speaker 2: with you know, likely multiple different syndromes rather than there

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Speaker 2: have been a single disease. Unfortunately, there's no approved you know,

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Speaker 2: drug intervention for the treatment of long COVID. Lots of

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Speaker 2: different things being trial, so you know, we really need

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Speaker 2: to see more funding going into supporting trials off DUW

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Speaker 2: drug treatments for these individuals because they're quite desperate for

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Speaker 2: for that.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: Right now, the treatment of disease is largely managed by

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Speaker 2: you know, recibilitation, rest and things that, but it's quite

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Speaker 2: frustrating when recovery takes you potentially years after infection.

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Speaker 1: All right, So you've made the point vaccinition the best

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Speaker 1: way to try and avoid all of this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Definitely, the best line of protection is vaccination and

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Speaker 2: obviously keeping those them booster doses up. I know we've

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Speaker 2: all become kind of complacent to it, But certainly if

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Speaker 2: you're in higher risk categories, if you're older, have any

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Speaker 2: chronic diseases, keeping those boosters up to date is the

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Speaker 2: best protection that you can give yourself.

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Speaker 1: Given where immunization rates have fallen to though, and the report,

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Speaker 1: as you'd be aware earlier this week on COVID management

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Speaker 1: around the country found that the mandatory vaccines was a

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Speaker 1: big turn off factor for people. Vaccination. We have had

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Speaker 1: enough of that message, have we not? It might be

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Speaker 1: important as a medical professional. I know you'd certainly argue

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Speaker 1: it is, but gee, I think people just just switch

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Speaker 1: off hearing it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree that that's a big factor at the

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Speaker 2: moment people are fatigued with you know, they don't immediately

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Speaker 2: see the risk. But you know, if you talk to

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Speaker 2: an individual who's suffering from long COVID, it would frighten you.

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Speaker 2: You know, these are often very highly functional individuals, you know,

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Speaker 2: who have to really reducer or stop working. And you know,

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Speaker 2: after a few minutes of talking to what these people

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Speaker 2: are going through, you know, popping down to your pharmacy

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Speaker 2: for a few minutes and getting a job seems like

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Speaker 2: a relatively small price to pay.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Indeed, now Kay has just taxted in. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you'll know the answer to this, She says,

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Speaker 1: Please ask when is the next vaccine update likely to

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Speaker 1: be available?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I'm not quite up to date on when the

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Speaker 2: when the latest strains are are out at the moment,

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Speaker 2: but you know, getting any vaccine that's available at the

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Speaker 2: moment will give you at least good protection against the

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Speaker 2: circling variant. So the best time to get vaccinated is

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Speaker 2: it is now, particularly if it's been a while since

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Speaker 2: you've been vaccinated.

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Speaker 1: All right, boosters what every six months?

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Speaker 2: Probably not that type of frequency in the high risk groups.

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Speaker 2: I think they are recommending, you know, kind of once

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Speaker 2: a year now it will be good. So kind of

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Speaker 2: getting into the habit, you know, particularly if you're older,

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Speaker 2: I said, if you have those chronic diseases, of getting

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Speaker 2: vaccinated once a year, a bit like you would get

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Speaker 2: a flu shot.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, terrific. Appreciate your time, David, Thank you, Thanks Matt.

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Speaker 1: Professor David Lynn, professor of systems Immunology at Sammary in

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Speaker 1: Flinder's UNI, on the effects of long COVID and the

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Speaker 1: research particularly into cardiovascular symptoms with long COVID