Scientists from the Medical University of Bialystok have identified a genetic variant that predisposes to the severe course of Covid-19. In their opinion, such a variant more than doubles the risk of a severe course of this disease and the patient’s death. It is estimated that even 14% of Poles have it in comparison to a frequency of about 9% in total in the European population.

The discovery was made within a project co-financed by the Medical Research Agency run by the Białystok university in cooperation with the Institute of Lung Diseases and Tuberculosis in Warsaw and the ImageneMe technology company. More than 1.5 thousand patients with COVID-19 and several clinical centers in Poland were also involved in the project.

The study showed that in addition to advanced age and obesity, the human genetic profile is a risk factor for severe COVID-19 – even more important than so-called comorbidities. Having one of the versions of the gene located on chromosome 3 means that in the case of coronavirus infection, people are more than twice as likely to suffer from severe and even fatal COVID-19.

Dr Radosław Sierpiński, the president of the Medical Research Agency emphasizes that the results of such studies will help to stop the development of the pandemic. “It should be emphasized that Polish innovative solutions will be received directly by the health care system, influencing not only its efficiency but most importantly, protection of the health and life of Polish patients – says Sierpiński.

The scientists emphasize that the discovery is the basis for the development of a test that would identify people with such a genetic variant. It was determined that the difficulty of developing such a test would be similar to creating current SARS-CoV-2 virus tests.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński