IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v11y2020i1d10.1038_s41467-020-19057-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

SARS-CoV-2 viral load is associated with increased disease severity and mortality

Author

Listed:
  • Jesse Fajnzylber

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • James Regan

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Kendyll Coxen

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Heather Corry

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Colline Wong

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Alexandra Rosenthal

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Daniel Worrall

    (Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Harvard Medical School)

  • Francoise Giguel

    (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Alicja Piechocka-Trocha

    (Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Harvard Medical School)

  • Caroline Atyeo

    (Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Harvard Medical School)

  • Stephanie Fischinger

    (Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Harvard Medical School)

  • Andrew Chan

    (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Keith T. Flaherty

    (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Kathryn Hall

    (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Michael Dougan

    (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Edward T. Ryan

    (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Elizabeth Gillespie

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Rida Chishti

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Yijia Li

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Nikolaus Jilg

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
    Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Dusan Hanidziar

    (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Rebecca M. Baron

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Lindsey Baden

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Athe M. Tsibris

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Katrina A. Armstrong

    (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Daniel R. Kuritzkes

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Galit Alter

    (Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Harvard Medical School
    Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Bruce D. Walker

    (Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Harvard Medical School
    Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School
    Howard Hughes Medical Institute)

  • Xu Yu

    (Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Harvard Medical School
    Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

  • Jonathan Z. Li

    (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

Abstract

The relationship between SARS-CoV-2 viral load and risk of disease progression remains largely undefined in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Here, we quantify SARS-CoV-2 viral load from participants with a diverse range of COVID-19 disease severity, including those requiring hospitalization, outpatients with mild disease, and individuals with resolved infection. We detected SARS-CoV-2 plasma RNA in 27% of hospitalized participants, and 13% of outpatients diagnosed with COVID-19. Amongst the participants hospitalized with COVID-19, we report that a higher prevalence of detectable SARS-CoV-2 plasma viral load is associated with worse respiratory disease severity, lower absolute lymphocyte counts, and increased markers of inflammation, including C-reactive protein and IL-6. SARS-CoV-2 viral loads, especially plasma viremia, are associated with increased risk of mortality. Our data show that SARS-CoV-2 viral loads may aid in the risk stratification of patients with COVID-19, and therefore its role in disease pathogenesis should be further explored.

Suggested Citation

  • Jesse Fajnzylber & James Regan & Kendyll Coxen & Heather Corry & Colline Wong & Alexandra Rosenthal & Daniel Worrall & Francoise Giguel & Alicja Piechocka-Trocha & Caroline Atyeo & Stephanie Fischinge, 2020. "SARS-CoV-2 viral load is associated with increased disease severity and mortality," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19057-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19057-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19057-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-19057-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elsa Brunet-Ratnasingham & Sacha Morin & Haley E. Randolph & Marjorie Labrecque & Justin Bélair & Raphaël Lima-Barbosa & Amélie Pagliuzza & Lorie Marchitto & Michael Hultström & Julia Niessl & Rose Cl, 2024. "Sustained IFN signaling is associated with delayed development of SARS-CoV-2-specific immunity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-19, December.
    2. Christopher Cyrus Kuhn & Nirakar Basnet & Satish Bodakuntla & Pelayo Alvarez-Brecht & Scott Nichols & Antonio Martinez-Sanchez & Lorenzo Agostini & Young-Min Soh & Junichi Takagi & Christian Biertümpf, 2023. "Direct Cryo-ET observation of platelet deformation induced by SARS-CoV-2 spike protein," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    3. Kara W. Chew & Carlee Moser & Eric S. Daar & David A. Wohl & Jonathan Z. Li & Robert W. Coombs & Justin Ritz & Mark Giganti & Arzhang Cyrus Javan & Yijia Li & Manish C. Choudhary & Rinki Deo & Carlos , 2022. "Antiviral and clinical activity of bamlanivimab in a randomized trial of non-hospitalized adults with COVID-19," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19057-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.