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A mystery surrounding the new coronavirus is why some suffer worse than others, even though they have no known illnesses.
Now researchers have found something that could be one of the explanations.
The researchers examined 987 young, previously healthy patients who developed life-threatening pneumonia after being infected with the coronavirus.
More than 10 percent of them have antibodies that attack their own immune system, called autoantibodies, or a deficiency in the protein interferon type 1. Protein is one of the body’s most important defenses against the virus. Ninety-five percent of the patients were men, and the study is described as “the first molecular explanation” for why more men than women die from COVID-19.
Described as a breakthrough
– The new results are a breakthrough in covid-19 research and may partly explain why some young and previously healthy individuals become seriously ill, says Petter Brodin, researcher at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet , and Swedish project coordinator in press release.
The aim of the researchers is to find out if there are genetic and immunological explanations for the fact that some patients under 50 years of age are severely affected by covid-19 despite not having underlying diseases, and now they want to know if treatment with interferons it may have some effect.
The researchers also performed tests on blood samples from people who had been in the hospital for life-threatening pneumonia in COVID-19. “A significant number” had rare variants of genes that handle type 1 interferons.
