IBD Patients Could Be Silent Carriers for Novel Coronavirus and Less Prone to its Severe Adverse Events: True or False?

S Haghayegh Baradaran Ghavami; S Habnam Shahrokh; Nikoo Hossein-Khannazer; Anastasia Shpichka; Hamid Asadzadeh Aghdaei; Peter Timashev; Massoud Vosough

doi:10.22074/cellj.2020.7603

IBD Patients Could Be Silent Carriers for Novel Coronavirus and Less Prone to its Severe Adverse Events: True or False?

Cell J. 2020 Jul;22(Suppl 1):151-154. doi: 10.22074/cellj.2020.7603. Epub 2020 Jul 18.

Authors

S Haghayegh Baradaran Ghavami^{1

2}, S Habnam Shahrokh^{1

2}, Nikoo Hossein-Khannazer^{2

3}, Anastasia Shpichka^{4

5}, Hamid Asadzadeh Aghdaei^{1

2}, Peter Timashev^{4

5}, Massoud Vosough⁶

Affiliations

¹ Basic and Molecular Epidemiology of Gastrointestinal Disorders Research Center, Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
² Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases Research Center, Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
³ Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁴ Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Sechenov University, Moscow, Russia.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
⁶ Department of Regenerative Medicine, Cell Science Research Center, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran. Electronic Address: masvos@royaninstitute.org.

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are chronic disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. The goal of IBD treatment is to reduce the inflammation period and induce long-term remission. Use of anti-inflammatory drugs including corticosteroids, immunosuppressants and biologicals, is often the first step in the treatment of IBD. Therefore, IBD patients in pandemic of infectious diseases are considered a high-risk group. The public believes that IBD patients are at a higher risk in the current coronavirus 2 pandemic. Nevertheless, these patients may experience mild or moderate complications compared to healthy people. This might be because of particular anti-TNF-α treatment or any immunosuppressant that IBD patients receive. Moreover, these patients might be silent carrier for the virus.

Keywords: Anti-TNF-α; COVID-19; Crohn’s Disease; IBD; Ulcerative Colitis.