ACE polymorphism is a determinant for COVID-19 mortality in the post-vaccination era

What is it about?

The COVID-19 pandemic has been responsible for over 4,500,000 lethal cases worldwide. Despite a huge vaccination campaign, COVID-19 still causes a considerable human toll. As COVID-19 prevalence and mortality partially depends on genetic factors, we have studied the potential effect of genetic polymorphisms on COVID-19 mortality in the post-vaccination period. Case mortality data from 26 European countries were compared with the proportion of fully vaccinated people, and the phenotype distribution of several genetic polymorphisms . In a multiple regression model the relative mortality (the ratio of death rate and case rate) was compared to the vaccine uptake in adults for each country. Vaccination protects against COVID-19 mortality (p=0.0026). Furthermore, also the ACE1 D/I polymorphism contributes (p=0.0076) to COVID-19 mortality. Next to the expected effect of the widespread vaccination campaign, in Europeans the ACE1 D allele appears to be a major confounding factor in COVID-19 mortality, which is able to partially explain the pronounced geographical differences in COVID-19 in the post-vaccination era.

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