2 Department of Medical Microbiology, Wasit University, Faculty of Medicine, Wasit, Iraq.
* corresponding author email: ebtekarm@modares.ac.ir , Phone Number: 82883891
Abstract
Objective
This study aimed to establish an association between induced cytokines and COVID-19 disease severity and moderate to help in prognosis and clinical care in both vaccinated and non-vaccinated patients, Immune parameters for COVID-19 patients with or without previous vaccination are evaluated.
Methods
40 COVID-19+ patients (20 vaccinated with Pfizer-Biotech COvid-19 vaccine and 20 unvaccinated) were studied during and after infection. 12 healthy and vaccinated controls (6 in each group) were also enrolled in this study. This study has been performed in Iraq to evaluate and find correlation of metabolic and immune parameters in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients as compared to healthy controls. In this work we evaluated CRP, lymphocyte counts, cholesterol levels, IgM and IgG detection and IL6, IL10 and IL17 levels during and after COVID-19 infection.
Results
In this work, 80 -90% of vaccinated and unvaccinated COVID-19 patients had above normal CRP levels. Cholesterol levels were above normal in 65% of unvaccinated patients.  Differences between cytokine levels during and after the infection were significant.(P<0.001)  |Also a positive correlation between cholesterol and all cytokines studied was observed.(P<0.001 )   A significant increase in  IL-6 levels have been observed in patients as compared to healthy controls while the difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients is also significant (P<0.001).  As for IL-10, the increase in patients as compared to healthy controls is significant P=0.00. For IL-17, our studies show that the increase in patients is significant P=0.00 while there is no significant difference in IL-17 levels between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients P>0.001 or healthy controls (P>0.001).  A positive correlation between IL6 and CRP levels as well as IL10 and CRP levels is also observed in our work (P<.0.001).    A significant relationship was observed between IgM and all parameters including: CRP (P=0.00) Cholesterol (P=.008) and IL17 (P=0.00), IL6 (P=0.0) and IL10 (P=0.0).   A significant relationship was observed between IgG and all parameters CRP (P=0.00) and IL17 (P=0.00), IL6 with P=0.0 and IL10 with P=0.0, as well as cholesterol, except for lymphocyte counts.
Conclusion This study has been performed for the first time in Iraq and will serve as an important standard for future basic and clinical research in this field. It shows a meaningful relationship between cholesterol levels, IgM/ IgG detection, CRP levels, and IL-6, IL-10, and IL-17. Further studies on the long-term consequences of COVID on life quality parameters are also underway.