Researchers launch trial to treat long COVID with drug used to block effects of opioids (News)

Researchers launch trial to treat long COVID with drug used to block effects of opioids

ABC Gold Coast
20 December 2022
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-21/long-covid-treatment-trial-drug-low-dose-naltrexone/101770626?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_web

A team on Australia's Gold Coast is collaborating with a doctor in Western Australia to run a clinical trial examining the impacts of low-dose naltrexone (LDN) on people suffering from long COVID.

Earlier this year,  Queensland's Griffith University's National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED) team published research showing laboratory-based evidence of an overlap between long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The researchers have also been looking at the effects of LDN on people experiencing chronic fatigue. "It provides laboratory evidence on the benefits of LDN before we move to a clinical trial."

The trial is looking for participants who have experienced certain long COVID symptoms. "We're also looking for people with the symptom cluster of fatigue, rather than breathlessness or other symptom clusters."  "They can't be on any opioid-type painkillers, any morphine-type painkillers."

The trial will run for several months early next year. The researchers hope to publish their findings in late 2023 or early 2024.