Ohio State University, Columbus

- This paper details the hypothesis that asthma may act as a protective comorbidity against the infection of COVID-19
- In asthmatics, there is high level of Th2 cells already present near the lungs to assist with lowering the severity of eosinophilic inflammation brought on upon by asthma
- The presence of these cells could assist with the mediation of immune system responses brought on by COVID-19 including hyperactive I IFN expression
- IFN also plays a large role in COVID-19 immune response as it signals for many downstream effects, including cytokine storm syndrome 
- Since cytokine storm syndrome has been directly linked to more severe COVID-19 cases with worse outcomes, the suppression of hyper IFN expression allows for asthmatics to see lower risk COVID-19 cases or even immunity to the virus all together, further illustrated in Figure 2

Is asthma protective against COVID-19?

Carli, G., Cecchi, L., Stebbing, J., Parronchi, P., & Farsi, A. (2020). Is asthma protective against COVID-19?. Allergy, 10.1111/all.14426. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/all.14426

URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7300712/

Learn Before

Related