There are a lot of things we have yet to know about the new virus, COVID-19, but through continuous research, it has become clear that there are certain factors that raise an individual’s risk to develop a severe case of the disease.
With the arrival of vaccines, what separates the asymptomatic patients from those who need to be hospitalised? The risk factors include being elderly, being male, being obese, and belonging to a certain race or ethnic minority. People who have an underlying chronic condition such as kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes also increased the likelihood of a person dying from COVID-19.
However, what makes the disease puzzling is the extremely wide spectrum of symptoms associated with it. Some people only get a mild cough or don’t even develop any symptoms at all. On the other end of the spectrum, catching the virus may mean going into respiratory failure.
Experts think this disparity could be rooted in individual persons’ genetic predisposition to the disease. Scientists all over the world have been scanning huge genetic datasets and collected DNA samples from COVID-19 patients. Their hope is to find genetic signatures that could explain why some people develop life-threatening symptoms.
Genetics and COVID-19
During the early days of the pandemic, two brothers in the Netherlands, 29 and 32, were taken to the hospital because of COVID-19. While both were previously healthy, they developed severe symptoms and had to be admitted to the ICU. Within days, the 32-year old needed ventilation and couldn’t breathe on his own. His younger brother also came down with an unusually high fever and eventually died from complications.
Only days later, another second pair of brothers, 21 and 23, were taken to separate hospitals. Both experienced difficulty in breathing and had to be placed on ventilators. CT scans also revealed that the virus had already ravaged the younger brother’s lungs. However, after staying in the hospital for more than a week, both brothers were discharged.
Because of this, Alexander Hoischen, PhD, a geneticist at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, became convinced that a genetic component plays an important role in determining a person’s COVID-19 risk. He theorized that the brothers could share a genetic trait that either strengthened or compromised their immune systems.
Academic researchers and biotech companies have formed the COVID Human Genetic Effort and the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative to gather data from thousands of patients in various countries. Consumer DNA testing services are also getting DNA from their customers to identify genetic links.
Through these studies, researchers could develop new treatments or even repurpose existing drugs to treat the disease. Apart from the treatment, these studies could also help researchers predict people’s COVID-19 risk, which co