Blood groups A, B and Rh+ more disposed to Covid-19, shows Ganga Ram Hospital study

A study at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has found that blood groups A, B and Rh+ are more disposed to Covid-19 infection, while blood groups O, AB and and Rh- are at a significantly lower risk of the infection.

The study was conducted in 2,586 Covid-19 positive patients who were admitted to the hospital from April 8 2020 to October 4 2020. The findings were published in the November 21 issue of Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.

“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,” said Dr. Rashmi Rana, Consultant, Department of Research.

According to the research paper, the frequencies of A, B, O and AB blood groups were 29.93%, 41.8%, 21.19% and 7.89% respectively, while 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.

“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,” said Dr. Vivek Ranjan, Co-author and Chairperson, Department of Blood Transfusion.

However, the paper says that they found no association between blood groups and susceptibility to severity of disease and mortality. It did find that blood groups A and Rh+ types are associated with a decrease in recovery period while blood groups O and Rh- are associated with increase in recovery.

However, the study concludes by stating that “ …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.”