Covid-19 update: India's Covid-19 cases continue to fall, 5,476 new cases, 158 deaths logged in last 24 hours
Premium- The Covid-19 deaths recorded a steep decline with 158 deaths reported in the last 24 hour period
Covid-19 update: India on Sunday recorded further decline in Covid-19 cases, as the Union Health Ministry updated data reported 5,476 fresh Covid-19 cases in last 24 hours. Additionally, the Covid-19 deaths recorded a steep decline with 158 deaths reported in the 24 hour period. While 9,754 recoveries were recorded in the last 24 hours, with active cases at 59,442, as per the updated data.
Meanwhile, new study has analysed over 3000 proteins to identify which are causally linked to the development of severe Covid-19. This is the first study to assess such a large number of proteins for their connection to Covid-19. The findings of the study will provide insight into potential new targets for approaches to treat and prevent severe Covid-19.
The study was led by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre and was published in the journal, 'PLOS Genetics'. The study used a genetic tool to screen over 3000 proteins. Researchers identified six proteins that could underlie an increased risk of severe Covid-19 and eight that could contribute to protection from severe Covid-19.
One of the proteins (ABO) that was identified as having a causal connection to the risk of developing severe Covid-19 determines blood groups, suggested that blood groups play an instrumental role in whether people develop severe forms of the disease.
Co-first author Dr Alish Palmos from Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) King's College London said, "We have used a purely genetic approach to investigate a large number of blood proteins and established that a handful have causal links to the development of severe Covid-19. Honing in on this group of proteins is a vital first step in discovering potentially valuable targets for development of new treatments."
Assessing how blood proteins are linked to disease can help understand the underlying mechanisms and identify potential new targets for developing or repurposing drugs. Protein levels can be measured directly from blood samples but conducting this type of research for large numbers of proteins is costly and cannot establish causal direction.
This is where genetics can play a role. Mendelian randomisation, a method of comparing causal relations between risk factors and health outcomes, using large genetic datasets can assess the relationship between genetic variants connected with an exposure (in this case high levels of individual blood proteins) and genetic variants connected with disease outcome (in this case severe Covid-19).
(With inputs from agencies)
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