The Assessment of the Relationship Between ABO Blood Groups and Covid-19 Infection

The new coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is rapidly spreading around the world and has been declared an outbreak by WHO However, the effect of blood groups on COVID-19 infection and the severity of the disease is unclear The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between ABO blood group and susceptibility to COVID-19 infection and whether the blood group will be a biomarker for COVID-19 infection Patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 between March and May 2020 were included in this study In order to compare the blood groups of the patients with the healthy group, patients who had previously performed ABO blood group analysis in the blood bank between February and May 2020 were included as the control group Demographic data, clinical data, underlying comorbidities, laboratory findings and clinical results (hospitalization, need for intensive care, mortality) were obtained from the electronic medical records A total of 179 patients with confirmed COVID-19 and 5200 healthy control patients were included in the study Patients with COVID-19 showed a distribution of 62 01% in group A,9 50% in group B, 8 94% in group AB and 19 55% in group O In group A, length of stay in Intensive Care Unit was longer (10 42±11 61 days;p= 0 013) Compared to the blood groups of the healthy control group, COVID-19 patients had higher A blood group than the healthy group (62& vs 46 6%;p 0 001) and lesser of the O blood group (19 6% vs 34 7%;p 0 001) Blood group A can be used as a predictive biomarker for COVID-19 disease In addition, we concluded that the group A had a higher risk for COVID-19 disease and severity © 2020, UHOD - Uluslararasi Hematoloji Onkoloji Dergisi All rights reserved