Anniversary
On March 1, 2020, Corona reached the German capital.
Almost exactly four years later, Carmen Scheibenbogen takes a seat in a conference room on the Charité’s Mitte campus to report on the long-term consequences of Corona . She is one of the experts in Germany in the field of Long Covid and the many diseases associated with it. One of the most severe and complex forms is ME/CFS . The Berlin professor was already researching this before the pandemic.
Perhaps ME/CFS is a good example that shows how far Germany has come so far in researching and dealing with Corona. “The situation is certainly better than before the pandemic,” says Carmen Scheibebogen. Along with Uta Behrends in Bavaria, who focused on children and adolescents, she was the only one who dealt with the post-viral disease before Sars-CoV-2. There are now medical centers for patients with ME/CFS in Germany not only in Berlin and Munich, but also elsewhere.
“Overall, too little is happening,” says Carmen Scheibenbogen. “Most of those affected are not well cared for.” A start could have been made last September, when Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) promised funding of 15 million euros. It is not yet clear which studies will be financed with the money. “We expect notification of this this spring,” says Scheibebogen. “We have around 30 research projects in Germany that deal with ME/CFS. This is unprecedented in this form and will quickly advance the treatment of the disease.”
For the Long Covid area as a whole, public investments are to be increased even more significantly. “There will be an announcement soon that around 80 million will flow into health care research,” says Scheibenbogen. Meanwhile, the Charité received funding for a project that focuses on patients severely affected by Long Covid.
Source: Berliner Zeitung, 1st March 2024
The ME Global Chronicle 