Salih AKSU, Yahya BÜYÜKAŞIK, Serhat ÜNAL, Hakan GÖKER, Haluk DEMİROĞLU, Elifcan ALADAĞ KARAKULAK, Nilgün SAYINALP, Osman ÖZCEBE, İbrahim C. HAZNEDAROĞLU, Cağlayan Merve AYAZ, Ahmet Cağkan İNKAYA, Ömrüm UZUN, Murat AKOVA

The effects of blood group types on the risk of COVID-19 infection and its clinical outcome

COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease of 2019) is an infectious disease outbreak later on declared as a pandemic, causedby the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2). It spreads very rapidly and can result in severe acute respiratoryfailure. The clinical studies have shown that advanced age and chronic diseases increase the risk of infection. However, influence of theblood groups on COVID-19 infection and its outcome remains to be confirmed. The aim of this study is to investigate whether thereexists a relationship between the blood groups of the patients and risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and the clinical outcomes in COVID-19patients.Material and method: 186 patients with PCR confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 were included in this study. Age, sex, blood groups,comorbidities, need for intubation and intensive care unit follow up and mortalities of the patients were analyzed retrospectively. 1881healthy individuals, who presented to the Hacettepe University Blood Bank served as the controls.Results: The most frequently detected blood group was blood group A (57%) amongst the COVID-19 patients. This was followed byblood group O (24.8%). The blood group types did not affect the clinical outcomes. The blood group A was statistically significantlymore frequent among those infected with COVID-19 compared to controls (57% vs. 38%, P < 0.001; OR: 2.1). On the other hand, thefrequency of blood group O was significantly lower in the COVID-19 patients, compared to the control group (24.8% vs. 37.2%, P: 0.001;OR: 1.8).Conclusions: The results of the present study suggest that while the blood group A might have a role in increased susceptibility to theCOVID-19 infection, the blood group O might be somewhat protective. However, once infected, blood group type does not seem toinfluence clinical outcome.

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