Spondylitis Association of America Forums General Discussion General Message Board for Ankylosing Spondylitis and Related Diseases Coronavirus and Spondyloarthritis: Your Questions,

I’ve participated in the initial study too. I hope our experience can be helpful in some small way.

https://www.google.ro/amp/s/www.ilt...idrossiclorochina-sars-cov2-1321227/amp/

Originally in Italian survey of 1200 Italian rheumatologists says amongst 65 000 chronic patients with RA or lupus taking plaquenil only 20 tested positive for covid 19, no one died no one in ICU according to data collected so far.

I have been reading up here
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.00013.2020
and here
https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/12/6078/figures-only
on SARS-Cov-2 rNA uniquness comparing to closest in this family corona viruses ability to infect cell with S protein spike that is being cleaved by proteolytic enzymes Plasmin & Furin.
both seems to be usually elevated with people suffering from inflammatory conditions, as well as hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular illness, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and kidney dysfunction that makes the infection outcome resulting in more severe COVID disease.

then I tried to compare if both enzymes are elevated in AS and it returned me this for Plasmin, saying: Unlike in many other inflammatory conditions, plasma suPAR levels do not reflect inflammation in AS.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...r_suPAR_levels_in_ankylosing_spondylitis

and for Furin this 'The enzyme furin cleaves TGF-β, and deficiency of furin is associated with systemic autoimmunity' from Rheumatology ebook p 109 on cytokines:
it says that people with autoimmunity are deficient in furin that normally cleaves (activates) TGF-B cytokines promoting Treg cells via FoxP3. Surprisingly wihout the furin cleavege TGF-B (exhibiting both pro & anti inflammatory activity) along with IL-6 induces IL-17...
https://books.google.ro/books?id=WC...e%20ankylosing%20spondylitis&f=false

Just saw that there is increasing evidence that inflammation (cytokine storm) is what causes the most serious outcomes in COVID-19 and they are testing various monoclonal antibodies as treatment, including Humira.

No results yet and I can’t link to the article because it’s part of a daily coronavirus news scroll rather than a free standing article.

Hopefully we will hear results within a month or two. They have been talking about cytokine storm for months so there is consistency there.

COVID-19 recovery reported in etanercept-treated patient with spondyloarthritis: https://rheumatology.medicinematter...d-in-etanercept-treated-patient/17956996

Notably, the case reports says: "[T]he patient was treated with intravenous acetaminophen 'without the need of antiviral drugs, steroids, antibiotics or intravenous immunoglobulins,' and they note that no respiratory support was required over the 2-week hospitalization period. The researchers add that the 'outcome was favourable,' with symptoms regressing at day 10.

“In our observation, the use of a TNF-α inhibitor prior to the viral infection was not associated with a severe evolution of the COVID-19,” they conclude."

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/931745

“ Machado and his colleagues looked at 600 COVID patients from 40 countries, and found that those taking TNF inhibitors for their rheumatic disease were less likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19. However, treatment with more than 10 mg of prednisone daily — considered a moderate to high dose — was associated with a higher probability of hospitalization.”

Another (small) study confirming that patients on longterm biologic therapy and JAK inhibitors do not suffer worse COVID-19 outcomes than the general population: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009567

In fact, if I'm reading it correctly, the study suggests that patients on longterm biologic therapy fare better than immune-mediated inflammatory disease patients on other sorts of therapy, particularly steroids, methotrexate, and hydroxychloroquine.

In case you have not already seen this study:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2020283

Patients with blood type A+ generally fare worse during COVID-19 infection while patients with O- generally fare better.

Here is another study on the same topic:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7276013/

The difference in outcome appears to have to do with antigens.
According to this SF Chronicle article, the same effect of blood types cannot be distinguished in certain risk groups.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sf...his-blood-type-studies-show-15397362.php

The moment they found out Th1 are potentially our saviors, the already started to tests different HLA alleles. Shouldn’t be too long to test the HLA B27 one.

https://immunology.sciencemag.org/content/5/49/eabd6160

I did not find any papers confirming difference between responses of AS people and general population to covid, it knowing th2 overstimulation is our issue as well as in case of covid lead to cytokines storms I remain alert. What they now discovered is that kids are less susceptible to this Coronavirus as they often fall a victim to common cold betcoronaviruses, that show similarities on the 1st part of RNA ORF1A and their T-cells quite remember it.

Good health to everyone.

I hope everyone is doing well. I have been a little unlucky myself. I’m pretty certain that I got covid back in the beginning of May. I have no idea how I got it. Overall it has been a “mild” case, no hospital visit needed. However, the symptoms seem to persist. I’ve been able to get back to work, but I now have flare ups of chest pains and being out of breath.
Yesterday the symptoms got so bad again that it feels like I got reinfected. My sense of taste and smell are gone, and today I suddenly became nauseous, cold and out of breath. Bad sinusitis too. Right now I kind of feel desperate and anxious that I might never fully recover from this.
One positive aspect is that it doesn’t seem to have any effect on my AS. My back and joints don’t feel any worse than normal...
Please watch out for yourself, avoid public places or wear a mask if you have to. And wash your hands often.