People with blood type A may be more vulnerable to coronavirus, China study finds
- Research in Wuhan and Shenzhen indicates patients with the blood group had higher rate of infection and tended to get more severe symptoms
- Those with type O ‘had a significantly lower risk for the infectious disease’ compared to others
Medical researchers in China took blood group patterns of more than 2,000 patients infected with the virus in Wuhan and Shenzhen and compared them to local healthy populations. They found that blood type A patients showed a higher rate of infection and they tended to develop more severe symptoms.
While the researchers said the study was preliminary and more work was needed, they did urge governments and medical facilities to consider blood type differences when planning mitigation measures or treating patients with the virus, known as Sars-CoV-2.
“People of blood group A might need particularly strengthened personal protection to reduce the chance of infection,” wrote the researchers led by Wang Xinghuan with the Centre for Evidence-Based and Translational Medicine at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University.
“Sars-CoV-2-infected patients with blood group A might need to receive more vigilant surveillance and aggressive treatment,” Wang wrote.
In contrast, “blood group O had a significantly lower risk for the infectious disease compared with non-O blood groups”, according to a paper they published on Medrxiv.org on March 11.