press release
Long COVID Rise Up: A New International Alliance.
An international Federation of Long COVID organizations fighting against the pandemic has just been launched.
2th february, 2026.
As the pandemic enters its seventh year, four European Long COVID & COVID grassroots associations have officially announced the creation of ‘Long COVID Rise Up’, a new formal international federation based in Paris and composed at his launch of : Winslow Santé Publique, Long COVID Aragón, COVID Long Solidarité, and Col.lectiu d’Afectades i Afectats Persistents per la Covid-19. The Federation will bring together patient groups, allies and whistleblowers to demand urgent research, prevention, and an end to political neglect and inaction.
https://www.journal-officiel.gouv.fr/pages/associations-detail-annonce/?q.id=id:202600042170
As SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread largely unchecked, millions are developing a condition that governments and institutions have failed to prevent, adequately assess, recognize or treat.
Long COVID is not rare. It is not just symptoms, and it is not inevitable. Long COVID is a chronic multisystemic disease with a known biological cause, a SARS-CoV-2 infection, and specific pathological mechanisms. It profoundly damages lives, can shorten them, and its long-term complication risks are still not completely evaluated.
The federation explicitly rejects the normalization of mass infection and the abandonment of collective prevention, policies that are actively fueling a growing population of chronically ill people worldwide, while failing to provide treatment for those already affected or safe access to care. The absence of treatment options for Long COVID sufferers is not a scientific impossibility but the result of political choices, sustained underfunding, and systematic minimization. In response, the federation will fight for effective and dedicated research leading to treatments, and will begin its work by immediately engaging in research projects and policy discussions at the European level.
Its main goals are: #StopTheDiseaseProcess #BlockTheSpread
Individual symptom management cannot be considered treatment for Long COVID sufferers. In the same way, prevention cannot rest solely on the shoulders of the most vulnerables: Long COVID Rise Up will also advocate for collective actions that can benefit everybody and drive progress in health.
Long COVID Rise Up demands:
- Research investment in biological mechanisms, etiology, and preventive treatments.
- Prevention with collective airborne protections, safe healthcare pathways, accessible efficient testing for all.
- Clinical trials, development and equitable access to disease-modifying and/or curative therapies, but also preventive.
- Representation of Long COVID patients in research, with inclusion in decision-making of directly affected experts concerned by the diverse presentations and risks of Long COVID without hierarchy.
- Access to appropriate diagnostics, investigations, risk assessment of complications, care and social policy.
Long COVID Rise Up will also challenge denial, stigma, psychologization, and unproven interventions.
The Federation draws its strength from the lived experience of people with Long COVID, who face the chronic consequences of COVID and continue, every day and across regions, to confront the pandemic while advocating for the right to health. It is committed to respecting the International Long COVID Declaration and the European Long COVID Manifesto, two documents that Federation’s members helped create with others, and whose values guide their actions.
Allowing uncontrolled spread without providing affected individuals with appropriate care is a failure, one that destroys lives, overwhelms health systems, and leaves us unprepared for future threats.
Together, we rise. Although it originated in Europe, Long COVID Rise Up may welcome Long COVID groups from around the world that share its values. The Federation also recognizes the vital contributions of qualified individual experts ready to engage.
email : longcovidriseup@proton.me
