Scientist believed that the reason a person might contract Coronavirus but remain asymptomatic was because their immune system was quicker at attacking the virus. This lead researchers to try and find a common variable among these types of patients. What they found was that many of these patients had two copies of the gene HLA-B*15:01. They also found that patients who had two copies of the gene HLA-B*15:01 were 8 times more likely to remain symptom free. Researchers are now using this information to try and create a vaccine that instead of preventing infection will help the body deal with the symptoms of infection. But this research could greatly benefit by having a much larger sample size and more participants.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/07/19/genetic-variant-asymptomatic-covid/
https://covid19.nih.gov/news-and-stories/decoding-genetics-behind-covid19-infection
I did not know that this could even be a possibility, had assumed asymptomatic people may have just had a heightened immune system. I think its very interesting that a gene could be the cause of this. It is like natural selection in a way that randomly some people have a defense against certain illnesses naturally. Very interesting!
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