Genetic markers of covid-19 susceptibility

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious threat to human health. Governments worldwide have put urgent measures in place to deal with this threat. Considerable experiences have been gained during this process, and they have gone a long way towards developing effective management strategies to control the spread of the coronavirus. Nonetheless, it is important that these efforts should be underpinned by investigations based on medical science. In this letter, we advocate widespread screening of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) markers and other immunologically significant genetic loci. We believe that these data will allow medical professionals to establish schedules of relative risk on patients following exposure to COVID-19. We suggest that this survey be facilitated by the establishment of a “biobank” containing samples from symptomatic and non-symptomatic individuals who test positive for COVID-19. © 2021. Penerbit UMT