A study published in late 2025, in Nature Immunology found that chronic inflammation is a key contributor to long COVID.
According to the Boston Globe (December 15, 2025), Dr. Dan Barouch, an author of the study, stated that several anti-inflammatory drugs exist and that Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has started a clinical trial with one such drug.
The Globe report noted, “'It’s really yet another piece of this big complex puzzle we call long COVID,' said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and leading long COVID researcher who was not involved in the study."