Fourteen-year-old Fiona Olivé lives with a constant cough and runny nose. It's as if she's always sick. During the cold season, her family is always on high alert to prevent her from getting seriously ill, as any respiratory infection can easily become complicated and develop into pneumonia. The young girl is allergic to various types of dust mites, grasses, and cats, and for a time, there was also a suspicion that she was allergic to eggplants, which was recently ruled out after controlled food exposure at the Sant Pau Hospital's day hospital. However, for the two years she lived with this suspicion, she had to act like a person with allergies. de facto to this vegetable. During this period, explains Karla Islas, her mother, the hardest thing for her was having to constantly be aware of the allergy "and, before eating anything, having to ask or be alert in case it contained eggplant." The young woman "also found it difficult at school," she adds.

Pollen and covid-19 infections have a direct relationship. A worldwide study published in the scientific journal PNAS, in which the Institute of Science and Technology (ICTA) of the UAB participated with data from Catalonia, relates the increase and decrease of pollen concentration in the air with the increase and decrease of SARS-CoV-2 infection rates. According to the research, pollen grains can affect the immune system of people, and not only those who have a respiratory allergy, making them more vulnerable to catching covid-19.