Abdul Rehman Arshad, Imtiaz Bashir, Farhat Ijaz, Nicholas Loh, Suraj Shukla, Ubaid Ur Rehman, Rana Khurram Aftab
{"title":"Is COVID-19 Fatality Rate Associated with Malaria Endemicity?","authors":"Abdul Rehman Arshad, Imtiaz Bashir, Farhat Ijaz, Nicholas Loh, Suraj Shukla, Ubaid Ur Rehman, Rana Khurram Aftab","doi":"10.15190/d.2020.17","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) is a disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). COVID-19 has yielded many reported complications and unusual observations. In this article, we have reviewed one such observation: an association between malaria endemicity and reduced reported COVID-19 fatality. Malaria-endemic regions have a significantly lower reported COVID-19 fatality rate as compared to regions where malaria is non-endemic. Statistical analyses show that there is a strong negative correlation between the reported SARS-CoV-2 fatality and endemicity of malaria. In this review, we have discussed the potential role of CD-147, and potential malaria-induced immunity and polymorphisms in COVID-19 patients. Noteworthy, the results may also be due to underreported cases or due to the economic, political, and environmental differences between the malaria endemic and non-endemic countries. The study of this potential relationship might be of great help in COVID-19 therapy and prevention.</p>","PeriodicalId":72829,"journal":{"name":"Discoveries (Craiova, Romania)","volume":"8 4","pages":"e120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7749783/pdf/","citationCount":"6","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Discoveries (Craiova, Romania)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.15190/d.2020.17","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 6
Abstract
COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) is a disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). COVID-19 has yielded many reported complications and unusual observations. In this article, we have reviewed one such observation: an association between malaria endemicity and reduced reported COVID-19 fatality. Malaria-endemic regions have a significantly lower reported COVID-19 fatality rate as compared to regions where malaria is non-endemic. Statistical analyses show that there is a strong negative correlation between the reported SARS-CoV-2 fatality and endemicity of malaria. In this review, we have discussed the potential role of CD-147, and potential malaria-induced immunity and polymorphisms in COVID-19 patients. Noteworthy, the results may also be due to underreported cases or due to the economic, political, and environmental differences between the malaria endemic and non-endemic countries. The study of this potential relationship might be of great help in COVID-19 therapy and prevention.