Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Apr 27;14(5):910.
doi: 10.3390/v14050910.

Associations and Disease-Disease Interactions of COVID-19 with Congenital and Genetic Disorders: A Comprehensive Review

Altijana Hromić-Jahjefendić  1 , Debmalya Barh  2   3 , Cecília Horta Ramalho Pinto  4 , Lucas Gabriel Rodrigues Gomes  3 , Jéssica Lígia Picanço Machado  5 , Oladapo Olawale Afolabi  6 , Sandeep Tiwari  3 , Alaa A A Aljabali  7 , Murtaza M Tambuwala  8 , Ángel Serrano-Aroca  9 , Elrashdy M Redwan  10   11 , Vladimir N Uversky  12 , Kenneth Lundstrom  13
Affiliations
Review

Associations and Disease-Disease Interactions of COVID-19 with Congenital and Genetic Disorders: A Comprehensive Review

Altijana Hromić-Jahjefendić et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Since December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in Wuhan, China, has resulted in over six million deaths worldwide. Millions of people who survived this SARS-CoV-2 infection show a number of post-COVID complications. Although, the comorbid conditions and post-COVID complexities are to some extent well reviewed and known, the impact of COVID-19 on pre-existing congenital anomalies and genetic diseases are only documented in isolated case reports and case series, so far. In the present review, we analyzed the PubMed indexed literature published between December 2019 and January 2022 to understand this relationship from various points of view, such as susceptibility, severity and heritability. Based on our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review on COVID-19 and its associations with various congenital anomalies and genetic diseases. According to reported studies, some congenital disorders present high-risk for developing severe COVID-19 since these disorders already include some comorbidities related to the structure and function of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, leading to severe pneumonia. Other congenital disorders rather cause psychological burdens to patients and are not considered high-risk for the development of severe COVID-19 infection.

Keywords: COVID-19; congenital anomalies; disease incidence and association; genetic diseases; genetic susceptibility.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Congenital anomalies and genetic diseases associated with COVID-19 based on the PubMed literature search. Conditions having more than five PubMed hits are mostly considered in this review.
Figure 2
Figure 2
PRISMA flow diagram of the literature search and article selection to develop the key sections (direct association and disease–disease interactions between a congenital anomaly or genetic disease and COVID-19) of this review.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Summary of associations, disease–disease interactions, and impacts of COVID-19 in congenital anomalies and genetic disorders.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Hu B., Guo H., Zhou P., Shi Z.-L. Characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 2020;19:141–154. doi: 10.1038/s41579-020-00459-7. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Khan M.S.I., Nabeka H., Akbar S.M.F., Al Mahtab M., Shimokawa T., Islam F., Matsuda S. Risk of Congenital Birth Defects during COVID-19 Pandemic: Draw Attention to the Physicians and Policymakers. J. Glob. Health. 2020;10:020378. doi: 10.7189/jogh.10.020378. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lopez-Leon S., Wegman-Ostrosky T., Perelman C., Sepulveda R., Rebolledo P.A., Cuapio A., Villapol S. More than 50 Long-Term Effects of COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sci. Rep. 2021;11:16144. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-95565-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Schwerzmann M., Ruperti-Repilado F.J., Baumgartner H., Bouma B., Bouchardy J., Budts W., Campens L., Chessa M., del Cerro Marin M.J., Gabriel H., et al. Clinical Outcome of COVID-19 in Patients with Adult Congenital Heart Disease. Heart. 2021;107:1226–1232. doi: 10.1136/heartjnl-2020-318467. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Barh D., Tiwari S., Andrade B.S., Weener M.E., Góes-Neto A., Azevedo V., Ghosh P., Blum K., Ganguly N.K. A Novel Multi-Omics-Based Highly Accurate Prediction of Symptoms, Comorbid Conditions, and Possible Long-Term Complications of COVID-19. Mol. Omics. 2021;17:317–337. doi: 10.1039/D0MO00189A. - DOI - PubMed