International Long COVID Awareness Day 2025
Five Years On, Long COVID Patients Are Still Being Left Behind
On 15th March we mark five years since the start of the pandemic and with it, International Long COVID Awareness Day. While COVID-19 may have faded from political agendas, millions of people worldwide continue to live with the devastating long-term effects of the virus.
According to The Health Foundation, in 2023 over 8 million people aged 16–64 in the UK reported having a long-term health condition that limits their ability to work. This includes 3.9 million employed people managing work-limiting conditions, and 4 million individuals who are economically inactive due to poor health. Despite this, governments have failed to respond with the urgency required.
A Breakthrough in Testing
Diagnosis is a major obstacle to treating long COVID. Without it, treatment pathways remain unclear, and critical research is hindered.
Attomarker has developed a test to support clinicians in identifying and understanding long COVID. Using a simple finger-prick blood test, it categorises people into three groups based on their immune response:
- Low immune response: People whose bodies produce too few antibodies and may benefit from immunotherapies and vaccines.
- Hyper immune response: People whose immune systems overreact, potentially leading to autoimmune complications.
- Unclear immune response: People whose immune activity is irregular or difficult to classify, requiring further research.
Scientific Breakthroughs and Next Steps
Research conducted by Attomarker has tested 200 individuals—150 long COVID patients and 50 people without the condition—to understand the immune response to different COVID-19 variants. The findings revealed that 60% of long COVID patients had gaps in their antibody spectrum, suggesting an inability to clear the virus properly. Another 15% were hyperimmune, meaning their bodies overproduced antibodies, potentially leading to autoimmune complications.
These discoveries have led to the next phase of research, working with clinicians, to explore two potential interventions:
- Monoclonal antibody therapy to fill in missing immune responses and support viral clearance.
- Protein-based vaccines designed to retrain the immune system to produce better-quality antibodies.
Initial findings are promising, and Attomarker is preparing for a clinical trial to validate these approaches. However, this research requires £2 million in funding to proceed. The company is actively seeking support from philanthropists, funding agencies, and clinical partners to drive this work forward.
For Vivienne Leonard, a Long COVID sufferer, this test was a game changer. After struggling for years with symptoms that left her unable to work, she finally had answers. “If I’d had this test at my doctor’s on day one, we could have been on it straight away. Could my life have been better? I think it would have been.”
The Cost of Inaction
The longer we leave long COVID unaddressed, the more likely it becomes a permanent, chronic condition for millions. Without urgent investment in research, millions of lives will remain in limbo.
A series of reports from The Guardian and BBC News have revealed the devastating impact of long COVID, from patients being left without specialist care to new research showing the dangers of overexertion for sufferers [BBC, BBC, BBC, Guardian, Guardian, Guardian].
Despite early promises of investment and research, the funding needed is not there, and many long COVID patients are being told their symptoms are psychological, dismissed without access to specialist care. This is a public health failure.
Join the Attomarker Community
Attomarker is committed to supporting healthcare professionals to change the outcomes for the long COVID community. But we cannot do this alone.
If you’re a long COVID patient, a clinician, a researcher, or someone passionate about driving change, join our community. Attomarker is building a long COVID network to help shape future clinical trials, research efforts, and provide access to testing.
Sign up for more information at: https://attomarker.com/support/register/
We are excited about this potential of using advanced diagnostics to determine individually tailored therapeutics for Long Covid and, in future, a range of other diseases and conditions. We will report further as our research and clinical work develops.
