I have spent my career studying infectious diseases that fall under the heading of neglected tropical diseases. Now I have a neglected disease — long Covid — an incurable (for now and for me) disease.
As a medical anthropologist working in global health, I thought I understood the despair of poor health. I didn’t. I join 7% of the U.S. adult population — or about 18 million Americans — who have experienced long Covid. Diagnosis of long Covid remains uncertain and contested, and treatments, ranging from repurposed drugs to hyperbaric oxygen, are even more so.