COVID-19 sent some people to hospitals while others never got sick. Researchers wanted to know why the virus affects people differently.
More than three years into the pandemic, many Americans still have yet to become ill from COVID-19. Researchers are trying to figure out why a virus has sent millions of people to the hospitals while others haven't become sick at all. According to a group of researchers,including ones from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the University of California San Francisco, the answer could be due to genetics.
The study enrolled 29,947 people early in the pandemic who were unvaccinated at the time. What they found was those who have a certain generic variant were much more likely to remain asymptomatic even when testing positive for COVID-19. This variant, HLA-B*15:01, is found in 10% of the population, researchers said.
"We hypothesized that their immune system could react so fast and powerfully that the virus was eliminated before causing any symptoms. It’s like having an army that already knows what to look for and can tell by the uniform that these are the bad guys," said UNC Charlotte assistant professor Jill Hollenbach, a co-author of the study.
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