Assessing the Vulnerability of Cancer Patients for COVID-19

Severe acute respiratory syndrome involving corona virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been implied to cause COVID-19 disease, leading to an unprecedented health emergency across the globe with a staggering figure of mortality rate. Measures to control the pandemic are pushing the economy into a tailspin, putting burden not only on the individuals but also on the nations. Despite the widespread infection rates, young people have shown better recovery rate while COVID-19 symptoms are more pronounced in elderly and people with comorbid conditions such as diabetes, cardiac and respiratory diseases. Cancer is a highly prevalent disease affecting millions of individuals. In this study, we analyzed the expression status of genes that are required for SARS-CoV-2 infectivity and its propagation to assess the susceptibility of certain cancer patients to infection and subsequent complications. Our data indicate that patients with colon, rectum, cholangiocarcinoma, lung adenoma, kidney renal papillary cell carcinoma and kidney renal clear cell carcinoma are more at risk for COVID-19. Genes that are responsible for severe COVID-19 are also highly expressed in many cancer types. We also carried out the association rule mining analysis which is helpful in predicting the expression of proviral genes in various cancers.

COVID-19 and its impact on cancer, HIV, and mentally ill patients

Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its disease, COVID-19 is a global pandemic creating an unprecedented medical as well economic havoc across the world. Despite the wide spread global infection rates, the death rate is low for COVID-19. However, COVID-19 patients with other comorbid conditions face severe health complications irrespective of their gender or age. As the management of COVID-19 patients is taking up health resources, it is getting difficult to treat patients suffering from other dreadful diseases like cancer, HIV, and mental health issues. In this chapter, we discuss the effects of COVID-19 and management of cancer patients of main cancer subtypes (e.g., breast, lung, blood cancers), and patients affected with HIV and mental health issues. Finally, we also add a perspective on Ayurvedic treatment and its efficacy on COVID-19 patients.

Most frequent South Asian haplotypes of ACE2 share identity by descent with East Eurasian populations.

It was shown that the human Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the receptor of recent coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, and variation in this gene may affect the susceptibility of a population. Therefore, we have analysed the sequence data of ACE2 among 393 samples worldwide, focusing on South Asia. Genetically, South Asians are more related to West Eurasian populations rather than to East Eurasians. In the present analyses of ACE2, we observed that the majority of South Asian haplotypes are closer to East Eurasians rather than to West Eurasians. The phylogenetic analysis suggested that the South Asian haplotypes shared with East Eurasians involved two unique event polymorphisms (rs4646120 and rs2285666). In contrast with the European/American populations, both of the SNPs have largely similar frequencies for East Eurasians and South Asians, Therefore, it is likely that among the South Asians, host susceptibility to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 will be more similar to that of East Eurasians rather than to that of Europeans.