IL-15 Expression in COVID-19 Patients and Knowledge, Attitude and Perception of Pakistanis towards COVID-19 Vaccination

Abstract

Corona virus disease is a severe pulmonary inflammatory disease that is caused by corona virus also known as SARS-CoV-2. Severe COVID-19 is also known by potential events of pulmonary hyper-inflammation and induction of “cytokine storm.” Evaluation of inflammatory responses is important for the development of anti-viral therapies against COVID-19. Most of the therapies against COVID-19 are mainly focusing on epidemiology, receptor identification and genomic sequencing. Study of inflammatory mediators along with comparison of mild and severe cases can help in better understanding of prognosis of disease and thus help in therapeutic strategies. Vaccines are one of the most important and effective tool approved by health authorities to control pandemic. After their extensive development and clinical trials almost every country approved vaccines for further implementations. Various campaigns and educational programs has been started against COVID-19 but due to newness of infection and its limited knowledge it poses questions for policy makers regarding its knowledge, attitude and perception. So it is necessary to evaluate willingness of general population towards COVID-19. A case control study was conducted at institute of biomedical and genetic engineering labs KRL, hospital Islamabad on 81 COVID 19 infected and 68 healthy controls group to assess their IL-15 expression and its comparison in mild and severe cases. Relative expression was measured between both groups to assess fold change increase in expression of IL-15. In KAP study, cross sectional survey was conducted (From May 21-July 21) on general Pakistani population to evaluate their knowledge, attitude and perception towards COVID-19 vaccination. Eighteen questions based, Self structured questionnaire was used. Samples size was estimated by Rao-soft calculator with 95% confidence interval and 5% margin of error. vii Relative expression of IL-15 in COVID-19 infected patients showed significant fold change (p<0.001) as compared to healthy control groups. In severe patients, relative expression of IL-15 was also high as compared to mild symptomatic patients. Higher expression of IL-15 was also observed in patients that had better survival rate but due no follow-up documentation its association with mortality rate limits its potential role in immunotherapy. This KAP survey will help in better understanding of general population opinion towards vaccination. Study included 400 participants, 46.5% females and 52.5% of males. Mean age of participants was 36.08. This survey showed poor knowledge (50.5%), fair attitude (75.1%) and poor perception (58.1%) towards COVID-19 vaccination. These findings suggest policy makers to implement more educational programs, campaigns and advertisement that contain accurate information and knowledge. This survey will be useful for policy makers and health care authorities who are aiming to increase vaccination rate.