Interleukin 6: The Best Marker for COVID-19 Disease Severity

SARS CoV-2 has killed more than 60000 people in India alone till September 2020 and caused severe burden on health infrastructure of the country. There is a need for early and accurate predictors of severe infection at the early stage so that people can be triaged. Covid-19 presents with an array of symptoms ranging from asymptomatic to mild cough and cold to high grade fever and difficulty in breathing. There are many cases in which mild cases progressed to life threatening condition in a matter of a couple of hours. So, there is a need for a marker that can predict severity of the disease. Cytokines are synthesised in the body during infection and they can be used to predict severity of Covid-19 infection. In our study we are trying to prove IL-6 and IL-10 to be ideal candidates for prediction of Covid-19 disease severity.