METHODS: Using a logistic regression model, we performed a study of 227 patients (37% with severe disease), all of whom were ethnically Uzbek, to identify predisease clinical phenotypes associated with disease severity, such as type 2 diabetes (T2D), obesity, hypertension and ischaemic heart disease (IHD), and ascertained the contribution of the angiotensin converting enzyme-encoding gene insertion/deletion (ACE I/D) rs1799752 and the interleukin-28 isoform B (IL28B) gene rs12979860 genetic markers. Here, ACE is linked to heart disorder.