Sickle cell individuals are less vulnerable for Corona Virus Disease 2019 - An Enigma

Abstract

The “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)” caused by “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” has emerged in December 2019 and was announced as a pandemic by “World Health Organization”. As of today, no specific therapeutics drugs are available for COVID-19. Thus patients have to rely on symptomatic adjuvant therapies. Iron is critical in various physiological processes like DNA/RNA synthesis and generation of ATP. In pathological condition, iron is vital for the host as well as the pathogen Literature search revealed iron chelation therapy is one of the promising and emerging treatment modality for COVID-19. In pathological condition, iron is essential for the host as well as the pathogen like viruses which require intracellular iron for replication and propagation. Sickle cell anaemia is hemolytic anaemia, where “Sickle haemoglobin (HbS)” is a structural variant of normal adult haemoglobin. Haemoglobin composed of heam and globulin molecules. An iron atom of heam helps in binding of oxygen molecules. In sickle cell individuals, haemoglobin concentration is reduced. Thus viruses do not succeed in replication and proliferation due to deprived iron concentration; they may be less vulnerable for COVID-19 due to reduced iron load. Another fact is that sickle cell individuals are immune to Malaria due to HbS. Some reports say that the incidence of COVID-19 is less in Malaria population counties. Thus it may be postulated that sickle cell individuals may also develop immunity to SARS-CoV-2, as evidenced by less incidence of COVID-19 in Malaria patients.