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Athena Akrami has not been well since March 2020, when she first experienced symptoms of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Although the initial infection cleared within weeks, more than a year later Akrami still experiences fatigue, joint pain, and frequent fluctuations in her body temperature. Puzzled by seemingly normal blood tests, her doctors had not been able to pinpoint any obvious source of her condition, she says, though they suspect it is related to her bout of COVID-19. Then, during a recent clinical check-up for fertility treatments, one of Akrami’s doctors recommended that they look for any imbalances in her immune system, specifically, that they test the levels of inflammatory cytokines. This time, the results were not normal: her cytokine levels were elevated.
The role of cytokine storms, which occur when the overproduction of cytokines sets off a positive feedback loop of immune ...
