Respiratory allergies are known to affect people all over the world. Environmental factors related to pollution play a significant etiopathogenic role in this regard. Polluting sources are industrial activities and urban traffic, capable of generating various types of pollutants that trigger inflammatory, direct, and indirect damage to tissues, promoting allergic symptoms, even serious ones, and interfering with the pharmacologic response. They are also able to modify pollen, promoting allergic sensitization. Pollution could have played a significant predisposing role in the ongoing morbidity and mortality of SARS-CoV-2.
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; air pollution; asthma; oxidative stress; particulate matter; respiratory allergic disease.
© 2020 European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.