Abstract
Viral infections are one of the main causes of asthma exacerbations. During the COVID-19 era, concerns regarding the relationship of SARS-CoV2 with asthma have been raised. The concerns are both for COVID severity and asthma exacerbations. Many studies on COVID-19 epidemiology and comorbidities have assessed whether asthma represents a risk factor for SARS-CoV2 infection and/or more severe course of the disease. This review covers the current evidence on the prevalence of asthma in COVID-19 and its association with susceptibility to and severity of SARS-CoV2 infection. It will examine the possible role of underlying asthma severity in COVID-19 related outcomes as well as the molecular mechanisms involved in the co-existence of these entities. The possible role of asthma inflammatory phenotypes will also be evaluated. Finally, the impact of asthma comorbidities and the implications of asthma medication on COVID-19 will be addressed.
Highlights
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This study reported that individuals with non- allergic asthma were more likely to test positive for SARS-CoV2 and had a greater risk for severe outcomes of COVID-19 than those with allergic asthma [25]
This deficient production of type I interferons in asthmatic patients, involving an inhibitory effect of the IgE crosslinking in plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) has been further examined in a recent study which found that treatment with omalizumab reduced asthma exacerbations and improved IFN-α responses to rhinovirus (RV)
Summary
COVID-19 is a pandemic caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV2 that has so far affected 260 million people and caused almost 5.2 million deaths. Asthma is a common respiratory disease affecting almost 350 million people worldwide. There is great variation in the prevalence of asthma in the COVID-19 infected population among different countries (Table 1). This may be attributed to differences in the reporting rates, but mostly to the protective measures among respiratory disease patients, including asthmatics. Later studies from Europe revealed contradictory data regarding asthma prevalence among hospitalized COVID-19 patients with some yielding low percentages (
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