Poland: Scientists find gene that doubles risk of serious COVID

Coronavirus, Health, Hospitalization, Infection, Poland, Symptoms

Polish scientists have found a gene that they say more than doubles the risk of becoming severely ill with COVID-19, a discovery they hope could help doctors identify people who are most at risk from the disease.

“After more than a year and a half of work it was possible to identify a gene responsible for a predisposition to becoming seriously ill (with coronavirus),” said Health Minister Adam Niedzielski.

“This means that in the future we will be able to… identify people with a predisposition to suffer seriously from COVID.”

The researchers from the Medical University of Bialystok found that the gene was the fourth most important factor determining how seriously a person suffers from COVID-19, after age, weight and gender.

The gene is present in around 14% of the Polish population, compared to 8-9% in Europe as a whole and 27% in India, said Marcin Moniuszko, the professor in charge of the project.

 

TVN24.pl report (in Polish)

 

 

 

 

Image by LionFive from Pixabay

** This post was originally published on January 13, 2022 **