• Jae Hyoung Im, Chung Hyun Nahm, Young Soo Je, Jin-Soo Lee, Ji Hyeon Baek, Hea Yoon Kwon, Moon-Hyun Chung, Ji-Hun Jang, Jung Soo Kim, Jun Hyeok Lim, and Mi Hwa Park.
• Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Inha University College of Medicine, Incheon, Republic of Korea.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 May 6; 101 (18): e29027e29027.

AbstractEpstein-Barr virus (EBV) is frequently reactivated by coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), and a high incidence of EBV viremia has been reported in patients with severe COVID-19. However, the impact of EBV viremia on progression to severe COVID-19 is unclear. Therefore, we conducted a study to evaluate the effect of EBV on COVID-19 progression.We investigated EBV viremia at the time of admission in COVID-19 patients hospitalized between February 1, 2020, and April 11, 2021. A cross-sectional study was performed to compare the severity of COVID-19 according to the presence or absence of EBV viremia. However, since it is difficult to analyze the influence of EBV viremia on COVID-19 progression with cross-sectional studies, a retrospective cohort study, limited to patients with mild COVID-19, was additionally conducted to observe progression to severe COVID-19 according to the presence or absence of EBV viremia.Two hundred sixty-nine COVID-19 patients were tested for EBV viremia. In a cross-sectional study that included patients with both mild and severe COVID-19, the EBV viremia group had more severe pneumonia than the EBV-negative group. However, in the cohort study limited to mild cases (N = 213), EBV viremia was not associated with COVID-19 progression.COVID-19 severity may affect EBV viremia; however, there was no evidence that EBV viremia was a factor in exacerbating pneumonia in patients with mild COVID-19.Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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