Their study included 1,980 people undergoing treatment for severe COVID-19 and respiratory failure at seven medical centers in Italy and Spain. These new findings-the first to identify statistically significant susceptibility genes for the severity of COVID-19-come from a large research effort led by Andre Franke, a scientist at Christian-Albrecht-University, Kiel, Germany, along with Tom Karlsen, Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet, Norway. In contrast, people with blood type O appear to have about a 50 percent reduced risk of severe COVID-19. In fact, the findings suggest that people with blood type A face a 50 percent greater risk of needing oxygen support or a ventilator should they become infected with the novel coronavirus.
The two stretches of DNA implicated as harboring risks for severe COVID-19 are known to carry some intriguing genes, including one that determines blood type and others that play various roles in the immune system. While more research is needed to pinpoint the precise underlying genes and mechanisms responsible, a recent genome-wide association (GWAS) study, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, finds that gene variants in two regions of the human genome are associated with severe COVID-19 and correspondingly carry a greater risk of COVID-19-related death. But why does respiratory failure also sometimes occur in people who are young and seemingly healthy?Ī new study suggests that part of the answer to this question may be found in the genes that each one of us carries. It’s clear that this happens more often in men than in women, as well as in people who are older or who have chronic health conditions. But others develop respiratory failure that requires oxygen support or even a ventilator to help them recover. Many people who contract COVID-19 have only a mild illness, or sometimes no symptoms at all. Caption: Micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles isolated from a patient.Ĭredit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH
0 kommentar(er)
