In a major boost to research on long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), the German government has announced that it will provide €500 million (US$582 million) in research funding to support a National Decade Against Post-Infectious Diseases from 2026 to 2036.

Germany is one of many countries facing an unprecedented health burden owing to long COVID and other post-infection syndromes since the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost one in five people in a German cohort had long COVID in 2022¹, and around one in seven people in the United States were affected by long COVID by late 2023². This translates to a considerable burden on health care and the economy — the syndrome is estimated to cost the world economy US$1 trillion every year³.

“From many conversations, I know what a great burden these illnesses represent for those affected and their families,” said Dorothee Bär, the German federal minister for research, in a press release announcing the funding. “There are still no simple solutions or therapies for ME/CFS and post-viral autoimmune diseases, and previous scientific studies demonstrate the complexity of the disease mechanisms.”

“This is really major funding,” says Rafael Mikolajczyk, an epidemiologist at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, agrees, saying it’s “a great step in the right direction”. Long COVID has become politicized and “less of a priority for governments around the world”, he adds.