Oxford University researchers have found a gene – LZTFL1 – that’s present in 60% of South Asians and allows the virus to multiply in the lungs more easily. By contrast, only 15% of Europeans and 2% of black Africans have the gene. MailOnline has more.
Scientists say the genetic quirk may partly explain why South Asian people in the U.K. have been disproportionately affected by Covid.
But they emphasised the single gene is not the sole reason for the disparity, and highlighted the seriousness of social and economic factors.
Office for National Statistics data show Bangladeshi men were nearly five times as likely to die with the virus than their white counterparts during the second wave of the pandemic in England.
Pakistani men were the second most affected (3.4 times as likely), while Indian men were the fourth worst hit ethnic group (1.95 times as likely).
Experts had previously found a stretch of DNA could double the risk of dying in adults aged 65 and above but were not aware of the exact gene that was causing the effect.
Professor Jim Hughes, a genetics expert who co-lead the study, said: “The reason this has proved so difficult to work out, is that the previously identified genetic signal affects the ‘dark matter’ of the genome.
“We found that the increased risk is not because of a difference in gene coding for a protein, but because of a difference in the DNA that makes a switch to turn a gene on.
“It’s much harder to detect the gene which is affected by this kind of indirect switch effect.”
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