Covid-19 Genetic Risk Variant Protects Against HIV
A Covid-19 risk variant inherited from Neandertals reduces a person’s risk of contracting HIV by 27 percent
The genetic variants we are born with can increase or decrease our risk of falling seriously ill with Covid-19. The major genetic risk variant for severe Covid-19, one we inherited from Neandertals, is surprisingly common. This raises the question whether it may actually be of advantage to carry this variant. A study by Hugo Zeberg, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany, and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, now shows that the same gene variant that increases the risk of falling seriously ill with Covid-19 protects from another serious disease – it reduces a person’s risk of contracting HIV by 27 percent.
Publication: Hugo Zeberg, et al., The major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is associated with protection against HIV, PNAS (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2116435119
Original Story Source: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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