Doctor: It needs more money and research
Binita Kane is an NHS consultant, but even she admits finding support for her daughter after she developed Long Covid was a challenge.
She is now leading a research study into children with Long Covid in the UK after being forced to fund private treatment in Germany for her daughter.
“It wasn’t because people didn’t want to help, it’s just there is nothing they can really offer other than physiotherapy,” she said. “The tests being offered on the NHS are not picking up abnormalities caused by Long Covid. So parents are being told there’s nothing wrong and children are being sent for physio and psychological therapies.
“For me, the frustration is it’s just accepted that
significant new disability in a child is somehow normal or being ‘made up’, as opposed to a child suffering a serious multi-system illness that needs research and treatment.”
Tests in Germany showed our daughter’s blood was ‘hypercoaguable’ – too ‘sticky’. This was causing her very small blood vessels that allow oxygen into muscles and nerves to become clogged up. Her severe fatigue was likely to be caused by a lack of oxygen getting into her muscle tissues.”
Kane, who works in Manchester, said: “My daughter was really sick – but after being put on to treatments at the clinic tailored to the abnormal findings, she has seen a dramatic improvement and is now back at school full-time compared to an average of around four hours per week last year.
“People say ‘we don’t know much about Long Covid’ but there are now more than 250,000 research papers about how Covid affects us. It’s the most researched disease in history but this is not translating into treatments.
“We need an urgent cash injection and a collaborative research approach.
“We need to move away from arguing about whether or not Covid harms children to finding solutions.”