One of the few studies is testing “cognitive rehabilitation therapy,” which recently failed in a U.S. trial
Key points you should know:
- In Colombia, President Gustavo Petro’s healthcare transformation proposal promises quality and equitable care, but Long COVID is not mentioned.
- One of the few Long COVID research studies in Colombia is testing cognitive rehabilitation therapy. This approach recently failed in a U.S. clinical trial.
- Colombia has no specialized Long COVID clinics, no treatments, and no media coverage. People with the disease pay out of pocket, lose their careers, and cycle through misdiagnoses.
In northern Colombia’s Caribbean region, in the city of Barranquilla, Luis Fernando Jimenez used to have a very active life. He would wake up at 4:40 a.m., go out for a 10-mile run, take his kids to school, and spend long days working at the port with site visits and trips.
But now, his body is no longer the same. His after-work activities are gone because of Long COVID, also known as “COVID Persistente” in Colombia.
“I started to notice that months had gone by and I hadn’t gone back to being the same,” said Jimenez. “I felt tired, I felt exhausted … I began to realize that I wasn’t the same as before; I couldn’t perform at work the way I used to.”
Like other South American countries, including Argentina, Colombia lacks awareness of Long COVID. There are no specialized clinics and only a handful of research studies, and there is minimal media attention.
This lack of response to the public health crisis of Long COVID is at odds with President Gustavo Preto’s plan for healthcare transformation. His proposal aims to guarantee more equitable, efficient, and high-quality healthcare for all citizens.
But Long COVID is not mentioned in the proposal. Nor are any plans to mitigate the ongoing spread of COVID-19. As the country grapples with ongoing security concerns and continued armed conflict, despite the 2016 peace deal, public health issues like Long COVID are overshadowed.
Because of this, people with the disease, including those still developing it today, are left behind — with no clear path to recovery or financial support. Plus, COVID-19 surveillance is lacking in this country of 52 million people: according to the World Health Organization (WHO), Colombia reported only 386 new cases of COVID-19 in November.
I began to realize that I wasn’t the same as before; I couldn’t perform at work the way I used to.
Luis Fernando Jimenez, Colombian with long COVID
Despite Long COVID’s impact, there are no specialized clinics or government attention, and only a few research studies are being conducted in Colombia. And they aren’t testing novel treatments that experts and advocates consider promising. One of the studies is trialing “cognitive rehabilitation therapy,” a type of psychotherapy that aims to help people recover from brain damage. However, a similar cognitive therapy approach recently failed to show effectiveness in a U.S. clinical trial, raising questions about the potential outcomes of this study.
Some researchers and advocates want to see more study of pharmaceuticals for Long COVID rather than psychological approaches, seeking treatments that will address viral persistence, immune dysregulation, reactivated viruses, inflammation, and other potential biological drivers of Long COVID.
The Sick Times spoke with people with Long COVID in Colombia, as well as researchers and other Long COVID experts, and found that many people with the disease struggle to access care or receive a clear diagnosis. They must pay for care out of pocket and cycle through misdiagnoses. What they want now is recognition of their condition, coordinated care, and specialized services.
Carlos Arturo Alvarez Moreno, an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist who advised the Colombian government on COVID-related issues from 2020 to 2022 under the previous president, told The Sick Times: “At this moment, I don’t see the government’s willingness to actively seek solutions for Long COVID.”
A closer look at Colombia’s research
One of the few Long COVID projects underway in Colombia is centered on a cognitive rehabilitation program developed by Universidad CES, in Medellín, Colombia, in collaboration with and funded by Northwestern University. The study has two phases: the first analyzed patients’ symptoms, and the second is testing a therapy protocol.
Its first phase focused on identifying people who had persistent symptoms at least six weeks after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Researchers evaluated a group of 100 Colombian patients, including those who were hospitalized and not hospitalized during acute COVID-19.
Investigators specifically recruited participants with persistent neurological symptoms, including problems with muscle pain, anxiety, and depression. Their findings added to many other prior Long COVID studies, demonstrating how this global crisis has impacted Colombia.
A second phase of the study began this year, testing a cognitive rehabilitation protocol that was studied at Northwestern University. In the protocol, patients undergo an initial cognitive assessment, one-on-one sessions with a speech pathologist designed to address specific symptoms, and then a final assessment. The Colombian study aims to assess the same protocol, examining whether it improves patients’ symptoms and cognitive test results.
While the small, observational study at Northwestern suggested that this protocol helped improve cognitive symptoms, a larger, randomized clinical trial from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s RECOVER program did not find that cognitive rehabilitation therapy or other cognitive training options were effective. The RECOVER study included 328 participants and five different treatment arms, including computer games designed for cognitive training, a cognitive rehabilitation therapy program with group and individual sessions, and transcranial direct current stimulation, all tested over ten-week periods.
None of the cognitive interventions that RECOVER-NEURO tested showed meaningful benefits when compared to the study’s control group. In discussing the study on social media, people in the Long COVID community said they weren’t surprised to see the trial had failed, based on their own experiences with similar cognitive interventions, and called the study a “waste” of time and resources.
Cognitive interventions such as speech therapy can be helpful for some people with Long COVID, said Letícia Soares, co-lead of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, in an email. But she was not convinced by the Northwestern study.
In this study, she said, the authors did not identify which participants had post-exertional malaise (PEM), mast cell activation syndrome, or orthostatic intolerance — all common co-diagnoses with Long COVID, and all signs of underlying biological issues that can contribute to cognitive symptoms. Without that information, it’s hard to understand why certain participants dropped out and why some who completed the program worsened, she said. But she suggested that some participants who dropped out may have done so because they experienced PEM during the program.
The Sick Times asked the CES researchers to speak with study participants, but they refused, explaining that participants were anonymous.
According to Soares, rehabilitation should complement — not replace or delay — pharmacological treatments that can help manage Long COVID symptoms. “It’s often the case that these are offered before and as a replacement of proven and safe drug interventions to manage symptoms,” she said.
The Sick Times spoke to lead researcher of the study, Carolina Hurtado Montoya, before the RECOVER-NEURO results were made public. At the time, Montoya had not heard about any trial showing the limitations of cognitive therapies. Instead, she focused on the fragmented care patients were receiving in Colombia.
“Our patients have told us that they have consulted multiple times [with different doctors, and those doctors] don’t know what treatment they have, they don’t know what diagnosis to give them,” said Montoya. “They are sent around in circles.”
Montoya hopes to “raise awareness among healthcare professionals” about Long COVID by communicating with Colombian medical societies. “Our objective is to use the results of this study to create a service and no longer receive only research participants, but open it to the community so people can come for consultations on their own,” she said.
When asked what she thought about researchers repeating the protocol from Northwestern in Colombia, Soares was skeptical: “The omission of cognitive exertion and PEM in design, analyses, and interpretation of the findings is in itself a major reason not to replicate this study — especially in the context of very constrained resources to fund Long COVID research, which is the case of most low- and middle-income countries,” she said.
The omission of cognitive exertion and PEM in design, analyses, and interpretation of the findings is in itself a major reason not to replicate this study — especially in the context of very constrained resources to fund Long COVID research.
Letícia Soares, patient-led research collaborative
Patients face Long COVID with no roadmap
Like Jimenez, Celeste Giraldo and Claudia Rodriguez are also living with Long COVID in Colombia. Giraldo, a master’s student in his late twenties, had to abandon Bogotá to move back to his hometown of Palmira. Rodriguez, a professional consultant in her early fifties who lives in Bucaramanga, used to travel frequently for work throughout Latin America, but now she only accepts work that doesn’t require travel.
Although their experiences differ, they both describe a health system that left them with no answers and forced them to navigate the disease alone. They spent years visiting different doctors and paying out of pocket, only to lose faith in the system.
Neither had ever heard of the cognitive rehabilitation study. Members of Long COVID Colombia, a WhatsApp support group, “are totally willing to participate in any trial that there is here in Colombia,” Rodriguez said. “Everything has been very difficult here.”
“Without care centers, people go from specialist to specialist or from doctor to doctor, and there’s no integration,” said Alvarez Moreno.
For Jimenez, when doctors were unable to explain what was happening to him, he understood why his family didn’t fully grasp it, either. He said, “There should be awareness campaigns, targeting healthcare providers, but also companies and families.”
For Giraldo, it was a similar experience: He went to every doctor he was recommended to, spending money when the insurance stopped covering it, but no one had a full diagnosis or knowledge of his condition. One of the doctors told him, “It’s just that we’re not really sure about the diagnosis, so I recommend you go see this psychiatrist,” he said.
“It’s not talked about in the news, it doesn’t exist, ” said Giraldo. “Some friends have completely distanced themselves.”
For Colombians with Long COVID who spoke to The Sick Times, recognition from medical providers and standard protocols, like the U.S.’s consensus definition from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, would make a big difference.
“We need doctors to recognize Long COVID as a disease, we need protocols, we need indicators, we need a way to proceed,” said Rodriguez.
We need doctors to recognize Long COVID as a disease, we need protocols, we need indicators, we need a way to proceed.
Claudia Rodriguez, Colombian with Long COVID
Delfi Marchese is a data visualization reporter graduating this winter from the Newmark J-School at the City University of New York. She was a summer intern at The Sick Times in 2025.
All articles by The Sick Times are available for other outlets to republish free of charge. We request that you credit us and link back to our website.
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