Background prevalence of genotypic variants associated severe COVID-19 in a Sri Lankan cohort

Abstract

Introduction: The global pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has impacted every individual either by affecting the health or economy. The variations in clinical manifestations and fatality ratios are attributable to the health care system, disease management strategies, variants of the virus and importantly genetic variations within populations. Hence, it is important to check the host genetic factors to understand the disease severity. Meta-analysis of 60 Genome Wide Association studies from 25 countries identified 23 genetic variants as biomarkers of severe COVID-19 disease. Our aim was to identify the background prevalence of these biomarkers in a Sri Lankan cohort. Methods: The genomic data of patients undergoing exome sequencing at our unit is maintained in an anonymized database. The candidate variants were assessed in 323 exomes. Analysis was performed using an in-house bioinformatics pipeline...