LATENCY AND REACTIVATION OF WITH AUTOIMMUNITY ASSOCIATED HUMAN HERPESVIRUSES IN COVID-19 PATIENTS

Objectives. Human herpesviruses (HHVs) share ability of persistence in human body in latent state after primary infection which can switch to reactivation of the virus due to factors including other infections and altered state of host immune system. Furthermore, infection of several HHVs have been associated with
contribution of autoimmune diseases.
The aim was to determine the presence and reactivation of with autoimmunity associated viruses - HHV6A/B, HHV-7 and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in COVID-19 patients.
Materials and Methods. This study included 86 hospitalized COVID-19 patients (45 females, 41 male) from May to November 2020. Patients’ age ranged from 18 to 93 years and the average age ± SD was 61 ± 17.2 years. None of the patients included in this study had received COVID-19 vaccine. Presence of HHV-6A/B, HHV-7 and EBV was determined by multiplex real-time PCR and nested PCRs in DNA extracted from peripheral blood and cell-free blood plasma. For 48/86 patients, repeated samples in dynamics were available at two or three timepoints.
Results. Of the 86 patients included in the study, 37.2% of blood but none of the plasma DNA samples were positive for the presence of the EBV genomic sequence; 1 blood DNA was positive for HHV-6A/B, but HHV-7 was present in 20.9% DNA samples extracted from blood and in one plasma sample. In dynamics, EBV was detected in 15/48 (31.25%) blood samples. Two out of 48 (4.2%) plasma samples were HHV-6A/B positive in dynamics as well as 4/48 (8.3%) blood samples. In dynamics, 3/48 (6.25%) cases of HHV-7 infection were detected in plasma samples and 8/48 (16.7%) cases in blood.
Conclusions. This study shows that reactivation of HHV-6A/B, HHV-7 and EBV latent infection can occur in patients with severe COVID-19 disease requiring hospitalization and long-term treatment. This can affect the course and recovery of COVID- 19.