The clinical spectrum of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Gaucher disease: Effect of both a pandemic and a rare disease that disrupts the immune system

Narayanan, Praveena; Nair, Shiny; Balwani, Manisha; Malinis, Maricar; Mistry, Pramod

INTRODUCTION: The impact of SARS-CoV-2 in rare disease populations has been underreported. Gaucher disease (GD) is a prototype rare disease that shares with SARS-CoV-2 a disruption of the lysosomal pathway. MATERIALS-METHODS: Retrospective analysis of 11 patients with Type 1 GD who developed COVID-19 between March 2020 and March 2021. RESULTS: Seven male and 4 female patients with Type 1 GD developed COVID-19. One was a pediatric patient (8 years old) while the remainder were adults, median age of 44 years old (range 21 to 64 years old). Two patients required hospitalization though none required intensive care or intubation. All 11 patients recovered from COVID-19 and there were no reported deaths. CONCLUSIONS: Our case series suggests that GD patients acquired COVID-19 at a similar frequency as the general population, though experienced a milder overall course despite harboring underlying immune system dysfunction and other known co-morbidities that confer high risk of adverse outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 infection.