PORTLAND, Maine (AP) Maine’s largest health network said Monday it will receive $1.5 million from the federal government to take part in a nationwide study about long-term effects of COVID-19.

MaineHealth said it will get the money from the National Institutes of Health. The organization said researchers from the Maine Medical Center Research Institute will be among those from dozens of institutions around the country participating in the study.

The effort is called the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery, or RECOVER, Initiative. It’s designed to learn why some people suffer prolonged symptoms or develop new or returning symptoms after the end of the acute phase of infection.

Ivette Emery, a translational scientist at MMCRI, said the work is critical because while “it’s clear that many patients continue to suffer COVID symptoms for months after recovery, we still don’t know why.”