Patients with respiratory allergies are less likely to get sick with COVID-19 says Musa Khaitov, director of the Institute of Immunology of the FMBA of Russia.
“About one and a half years have passed since the beginning of the pandemic, but from the very beginning there was evidence that patients with allergies are less likely to get coronavirus infection,” said Khaitov to a Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
He noted that, according to foreign studies, for patients with allergic bronchial asthma, coronavirus is not a factor that increases the risk of a severe course of the disease.
A study by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health says that respiratory allergy, asthma, and controlled allergen exposure were associated with significantly reduced gene expression in a protein that the coronavirus uses to infect cells with COVID-19.
“It is still difficult to say with what this is connected, various hypotheses are being expressed, but they require confirmation,” Khaitov clarified. Earlier, Khaitov advised allergy sufferers to get vaccinated against coronavirus in remission.