IACCs: Everything, everywhere, all at once
🚨 IACC: A New Field of Medicine Demands Urgent Attention: Infection Associated Complex Chronic Conditions (IACC)
Healthcare leaders and policymakers: We're witnessing the emergence of a critical new medical field that demands rapid learning, understanding and action.
📍 What is IACC?
IACC represents a paradigm shift in how we view post-infection illness. It's not just another medical term – it's a framework that spans our entire healthcare system. Every specialist must now understand how infections like COVID-19 are triggering and accelerating complex health conditions across their patient populations.
🔑 Three Critical Features of IACC:
• Systems, Not Symptoms: These conditions affect multiple body systems simultaneously
• Everything, All at Once: Patients experience cascading health impacts across organs
• Body and Brain on Fire: Persistent inflammation driving ongoing damage
🏥 Pioneering Leadership:
Dr. David Putrino (Mount Sinai) and Amy Proal (PolyBio) are spearheading this revolution through the CORE center, establishing the blueprint for this vital new field of medicine.
⚠️ Why This Matters Now - The Long COVID Crisis:
• 400M+ affected worldwide (Dec 2023 estimates)
• No established diagnostics, treatments, or cure
• Multi-system, progressive disease state
• Quality of life comparable to stage 4 cancers
• Post-exertional malaise can worsen with standard rehabilitation approaches
• Reinfections pose ongoing health deterioration risks
• Majority don't recover after one year
📊 Policy Response:
• US: $1B invested in research, with a proposed $10B+ moonshot bill from Bernie Sanders
• UK: Long COVID All-Party Parliamentary Group relaunching with new leadership
• Global: Urgent need for coordinated research and treatment frameworks
🎯 Call to Action:
The time for awareness is over – we need action. Healthcare leaders and policymakers must understand how IACC impacts our entire socioeconomic fabric.
🔧 Co-Design the Future with Co-EQ
We're building a groundbreaking data and innovation tool that maps both immediate and long-term impacts of IACC on:
• Workforce participation and productivity
• Healthcare system capacity
• Economic sustainability
• Social support systems
💼 Critical for:
• Policy makers tackling #Worklessness
• Healthcare systems planning for #FutureOfHealth
• Economists measuring productivity impact
• Businesses adapting to workforce changes
• Researchers identifying intervention priorities
Ready to shape the future of IACC response? Connect with Co-EQ to collaborate with us and benefit from our growing community lived experience and expertise.
Together, we can build solutions that address both the health and economic challenges of the IACC crisis.
