A Slow Accumulation of Viral Knowledge

At any other time, the little gains in scientific knowledge would hardly register, except in specialist scientific journals. Now, however, each tiny advance in knowledge about Sars-Cov-2 and its effects on the human organism are poured over by the global media. Understanding of why some infected patients have a much worse response to the virus, than do others, is growing (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/01/covids-effect-on-health-blamed-on-tiny-genetic-variations). Relatively minor genetic variations seem to be implicated. Some patients appear to have rare mutations preventing them from generating appropriate levels of interferon. Interferons are chemicals, produced by the body, that prevent viruses spreading from infected cells to neighbouring tissues. Interferons can be manufactured and might well be used to treat such patients. There is also a gene, TYK2, some variants of which can trigger auto-immune conditions, where the body fails to identify its own tissues as 'self' and attacks it). Rheumatoid arthritis (a painful joint condition) is an auto-immune condition and can be treated with a drug, Baricitinib. Early trials with this drug (which has genetic parallels with Covid), appear to speed the recovery of Covid-19 patients. In other studies, the OAS genes that are triggered by interferon and code for the enzymes that breakdown viral RNA (Sars-Cov-2 is an RNA retrovirus), also appear to be a good focus for study. This (and other) accumulations of genetic knowledge may enable clinicians to develop new drugs and work out how to target treatments of people, who generally show dangerous responses to this viral infection. This is, however, likely to be a slow process. One must remember also that genetic variations do not account for all the extra deaths in certain ethnic groups!