These blood groups are more prone to COVID-19 infections: Study

Amid the rising fears of a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study by researchers at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi shows that people with certain blood groups might be more prone to get infected with COVID-19 rather than other people.

The recent study found that blood groups A, B, and Rh+ are more disposed to COVID-19 infections, while other blood groups such as O, AB, and Rh- might have a lower risk of getting infected by the virus. The findings of the study were published in the Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology journal.

Dr. Rashmi Rana, Consultant, Department of Research said, “Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is a new virus, and it is unclear whether blood groups have any impact on Covid-19 risk or progression. Therefore, we investigated the association of ABO and Rh blood group with Covid-19 susceptibility, prognosis, recovery time, and mortality in this study.”

The findings in the research paper showed that the frequencies of A, B, O, and AB blood groups were 29.93 percent, 41.8 percent, 21.19 percent, and 7.89 percent respectively. However, in a control group of 79,325, their frequencies were 21.86%, 38.49%, 29.37% and 10.28% respectively. Of the patients, 98.07% were Rh positive.

Dr. Vivek Ranjan, Co-author, and Chairperson, Department of Blood Transfusion said, “We also found that male patients with blood group B are more prone to Covid-19 than female patients with the same blood group and blood group AB was observed to be more susceptible to infection in patients with age group ≤ 60 years.”

Even though the findings of the results suggest that certain age groups are more susceptible to the virus, no association between blood groups and susceptibility to the severity of disease and mortality was found.

Finally, the study states, “The ABO and/or Rh blood groups may not be responsible for this association, as these may indicate an unexplored underlying factor like comorbidity. Therefore, larger, multicenter, and prospective studies are needed to ascertain the relationship between blood groups and SARS-CoV-2.”