Study suggests risk of getting COVID-19 could be linked to certain blood types

Scientists believe a person’s blood type could affect how vulnerable they are to developing COVID-19.

The researchers arrived at this conclusion after studying the blood samples of 2,173 patients with COVID-19 in three hospitals in the Chinese cities of Shenzhen, and Wuhan, where the outbreak is thought to have started late last year. 

They compared this information with recent blood group surveys on 3,694 healthy people in Wuhan, and 23,386 in Shenzhen.

The findings were presented on the pre-print site medRxiv, a website where health researchers can publish studies before they have gone through the rigorous peer review process required by scientific journals.

Of the 3,694 people in Wuhan without COVID-19, 32.16 percent were A type, 24.90 percent B, 9.10 percent AB, and 33.84 percent O.

However, in the 1,775 COVID-19 patients at Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, the spread was 37.75 percent for type A, 26.42 percent B, 10.03 percent for AB and 25.80 percent O.

In Shenzhen, 28.77 percent of healthy participants were A; 25.14 percent B, 7.32 percent AB, and 38.77 percent O.

Other 285 Shenzhen patients with the disease, 28.77 percent were A, 29.12 percent B, 13.68 percent AB, and 28.42 percent O.

Taking the data as a whole, the researchers concluded that “blood group A had a significantly higher risk for COVID-19” when compared with non-A blood groups. Those in the O group, meanwhile, “had a significantly lower risk for the infectious disease.”

The study could have implications for healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients, the researchers said, as A blood types “might need particularly strengthened personal protection to reduce the chance of infection.”

These individuals might also “need to receive more vigilant surveillance and aggressive treatment,” and it might be helpful for healthcare workers to identify a person’s blood type as a routine part of treating COVID-19 and other infections by members of the coronavirus family of pathogens.

However they stressed that the study was limited, and “one should be cautious to use this study to guide clinical practice at this time.

There are currently no confirmed biological markers predicting how susceptible a person is to COVID-19, the authors said.

However, data so far suggests older people and men appear more vulnerable to infection and severe disease.

Gao Yingdai, a researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Experimental Haematology in Tianjin, who did not work on the research, told the South China Morning Post the study was limited because of the relatively small sample size when compared with the over 200,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. Gao also pointed out the study did not provide an explanation for the observation.