Blood type does NOT affect the risk of severe Covid, the study shows

by

A person’s blood type does not affect the risk of developing severe Covid-19 or being hospitalized for the infection, a study found.

Previous studies have shown that people with type A blood are more at risk of getting the coronavirus.

To determine if this was true, American doctors analyzed the medical records of more than 100,000 people who had a Covid-19 test in Utah, Idaho and Nevada between March and November 2020.

The cross-reference to their Covid status with the blood group revealed that there is no association between the two, disproving the previous findings.

Scroll down for the video

One study found that people were at higher risk of getting coronavirus if they had type A blood. Laboratory-based analysis investigated previous reports that blood groups impact an individual's susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

One study found that people were at higher risk of getting coronavirus if they had type A blood. Laboratory-based analysis investigated previous reports that blood groups impact an individual’s susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Breaking the British into blood groups

• A positive: 35%

• A negative: 13%

• A positive: 30%

• One negative: 8%

• B positive: 8%

• B negative: 2%

• AB positive: 2%

• Negative AB: 1%

Source: 900,000 blood donors in the NHS blood and transplant registry

Blood type is a trait that is determined by a person’s DNA and depends on the versions of genes inherited from a person’s parents.

These genes dictate the presence of antigens on the surface of red blood cells, the donut-shaped vessels that carry oxygen around the body in the arteries and veins.

Antigens are prominent proteins and there are two versions, A and B, which are found on the surface of red blood cells, also known as erythrocytes.

Each person has either A, B, A and B, or none. Therefore, these people will have blood group A, B, AB and O respectively, and this is known as the ABO blood group system.

Another antigen on the cell, called Rhesus, is either positive or negative and this determines whether a person is, for example, A positive or A negative.

Blood groups vary by geography and ethnicity, but in the UK, the most common group is A positive, followed by A positive.

Previous studies have shown that people with type A blood have a higher risk of catching the virus.

Coronavirus RNA-CoV-2 has a higher affinity for other cells - such as those found in the respiratory tract - that express a type A specific molecule called an antigen.

Coronavirus RNA-CoV-2 has a higher affinity for other cells – such as those found in the respiratory tract – that express a type A specific molecule called an antigen.

The test finds that convalescent plasma therapy does NOT reduce the risk of Covid-19

Injecting coronavirus patients with survivors’ blood does not increase their chances of improvement, a major study found.

Scientists conducting the REMAP-CAP study stopped enrolling patients infected with intensive care after finding “no evidence” of convalescent plasma therapy increased survival rates.

Therapy has also been abandoned by the world-leading RECOVERY process.

The first focuses on critically ill patients, while the latter involves hospitalized people, but not critically ill people.

The results of the studies studied sound dead for the promising treatment once, which was promoted by the NHS, NIH and academics.

One study suggested that type A people have more receptors to which the virus can bind, making them more sensitive.

But Dr. Jeffrey Anderson of the Salt Lake City Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute has performed the most comprehensive and controlled analysis to date.

“With contrasting reports from China, Europe, Boston, New York and elsewhere, we launched a large prospective case-control study that included more than 11,000 people who were newly infected with SARS-CoV-2 and not we found ABO associations with susceptibility or severity of the disease, write the authors of the study in their paper, published today in JAMA Network Open.

“Given the broad and prospective nature of our study and its strong null results, we believe that the important associations of SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19 with ABO groups are unlikely,” they added.

Researchers cannot explain why previous studies have come to different conclusions, but cite different factors that could have led to previous results.

It is said that pure chance, publication bias, genetic differences, geography and variants could have led to distorted data indicating that some blood groups are more at risk.

However, the study found that although the blood type did not, other factors did increase the risk of Covid-19.

These include being a man, being older and also people who are not white.

“Among people with Covid-19, hospitalization has been associated with gender and male age,” the researchers write. “Admission to intensive care has also been associated with the sex and age of men.”

The data also found that people who are not white, including African Americans; Native Americans or Alaska Natives; Natives of Hawaii or the Pacific Islands; Asians; and people who have not revealed their ethnicity are more prone to positive tests.

However, there was no link between these people and the severity of the disease.

Previous evidence of how blood type affects Covid

On March 17, 2020, just as the virus spread in the UK and before the first blockade was introduced, MailOnline reported that Chinese researchers found that people with type A blood were much more likely to catch coronavirus than those with type O.

The Wuhan study also found that those with type A blood are more likely to die from COVID-19.

In the general population, type O blood (34%) is more common than A (32%).

However, among patients with COVID-19, people with type O accounted for only 25%, while type A accounted for 41%.

People with type O blood accounted for a quarter (25%) of research deaths. Normally, O-type people make up 32% of the people in Wuhan.

Researchers in China evaluated 2,173 people who had been diagnosed with coronavirus, including 206 people who died after contracting the virus, from three hospitals in Hubei.

Academics compared the data of Wuhan-infected patients with 3,694 uninfected people in the same region.

Of the 206 patients in the study who died, 85 had type A blood, equivalent to 41% of all deaths.

In the healthy population of Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, 34% of people are type A.

In the study cohort, 52 of the people who died were type O, accounting for a quarter of all deaths. Under normal circumstances, only 32% of people are type O.

Figures for all infections, not just deaths, are 26% and 38% for type O and type A., respectively.

In November 2020, MailOnline reported again on a similar study that found that people with type A blood are more at risk.

Researchers at the Institute for Evaluative Clinical Sciences in Toronto studied 225,556 people who took a blood test between 2007 and 2019 and a Covid swab in 2020.

One study found that people with type O blood are 12% less likely to get the coronavirus than other blood types.

He also revealed that those with negative blood type (O-, A-, B- or AB-) are, on average, 21% less likely to get the virus than people with a positive type.

People with type O or negative blood are also 13% and 19% less likely to develop severe symptoms or die, respectively.

In the UK, about 15% of the population has a negative blood type and almost half (about 48%) are type O.

About one in eight people (13%) are O-, 26% less likely to become infected and 28% less likely to develop severe symptoms or die.

.Source