Scientists’ discovery should help prioritize COVID-19 vaccines
Scientists have discovered a gene that more than doubles the risk of getting seriously ill with COVID – and on average about 10% of people in Europe have it. The findings could help governments prioritize coronavirus vaccinations.
Scientists have discovered a gene that more than doubles the risk of getting seriously ill with COVID. According to the Daily Mail, researchers from the Medical University of Bialystok in Poland have found that a gene is the fourth most important factor (after age, weight and gender) in determining how seriously a person suffers from COVID. The gene is present in about 14% of Poland’s population, compared to 8-9% in Europe as a whole and 27% in India, they said.
The discovery of this gene could help doctors identify those who are most at risk of the disease and prioritize them for vaccination.
The new study was led by Marcin Moniuszko, a professor at the Medical University of Bialystok. The gene may not be a specific “COVID gene” per se, but rather one that may be associated with other health conditions. Since an estimated 14% of Poles have the gene, it is hoped that the new study will boost vaccination rates in the country.
As the Daily Mail recalls, Poland and several other Central and Eastern European countries are grappling with the latest spikes in coronavirus cases and deaths while continuing to record much lower vaccination rates than in Western Europe.
According to the latest data, 56.2% of the Polish population are fully vaccinated, compared to 71.1% in the UK and 62.7% in the US. Vaccination hesitancy is considered a major factor in the high coronavirus death rate in Central and Eastern Europe.
The situation has created a dilemma for the Polish government, which has urged citizens to get vaccinated. “After more than a year and a half of work, it was possible to identify a gene responsible for a predisposition to serious illnesses with coronavirus,” said Polish Minister of Health Adam Nedzielski. “This means that in the future we will be able to identify people with a predisposition to seriously suffer from COVID.”
In December, Minister Nedzielski indicated that of the 1,085 people under the age of 44 who died from COVID in Poland in 2021, only 3% were fully vaccinated. “These black statistics may be different thanks to vaccinations,” he said at the time.
The new study mirrors findings published in November by researchers at the University of Oxford. They identified the gene responsible for doubling the risk of respiratory failure from COVID, called LZTFL1.
The LZTFL1 gene is present in 60% of South Asians and makes it easier for the virus to replicate in the lungs. Its prevalence among people of South Asian origin partly explains the excess mortality seen in some minority communities in the UK.
.