Clinical and Genetic Characteristics of Covid-19 Patients from UK Biobank

Abstract Objective To explore both clinical and genetic risk factors for Covid-19 in a cohort from the United Kingdom. Design Prospective cohort study. Participants 669 positive Covid-19 patients within a cohort of 502, 536 UK Biobank participants, recruited between 2006 and 2010. Main Outcome Measures The main outcome measure was Covid-19 positive status, determined by the presence of any positive test for a single individual. We also assessed risk factors for inpatient and outpatient status for Covid-19 positive individuals. Results We found that black participants were at over three times increased risk of testing positive for Covid-19, relative to white participants, even after adjusting for confounders (adjusted relative risk ARR 3. 14, 95% confidence interval CI 2. 28 to 4. 31). Asian participants were also at higher risk of Covid-19 (ARR 2. 03, 95% CI 1. 40 to 2. 95). Next, we analyzed the association of comorbidities with Covid-19. We found that participants were at increased risk of Covid-19 if they had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (ARR 1. 54, 95% CI 1. 02 to 2. 31) or ischemic heart disease (ARR 1. 56, 95% CI 1. 18 to 2. 07). However, there was no evidence that either angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ARR 1. 32, 95% CI 0. 95 to 1. 84) or angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARR 1. 37, 95% CI 0. 94 to 1. 98) increased the risk of Covid-19. We confirmed that blood type A was associated with Covid-19 relative to blood type O individuals, and we also found that the HLA variant DQA1₅09 was enriched in Covid-19 positive cases, even after Bonferroni correction (P = 1. 0 x 10 −5). Conclusions In this study, we found that black and Asian participants were at increased risk of Covid-19, even after adjusting for confounders. We also identified a novel genetic association with the HLA variant DQA1₅09. Further investigations of genetic associations with Covid-19 may lead to important discoveries of genetic drivers of severe disease.