Blood Groups Typing and Their Susceptibility to Pulmonary Complications and Mortality in Patients with COVID-19 Infection

COVID-19 (coronavirus disease - 2019) is an infectious disease outbreak later on declared as a pandemic by World Health Organization, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2. It spread rapidly and can result in severe acute respiratory failure. ABO blood types are determined by cell surface markers that are characterized by a protein or lipid, which has an extension of a particular arrangement of sugars that determines each of the blood types A, B, and O. There are few studies examine the relationship between COVID-19 infection and blood groups distribution among COVID-19 patients. Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate whether there exists a relationship between the blood groups of the patients and susceptibility to COVID-19 infection and the clinical outcomes defined by clinical improvement, development of pulmonary complication, need for assisted ventilation or death. Subjects and method: This is a cross sectional study which included 340 adult patients with polymerase chain reaction confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19. Age, sex, blood group and Rh, comorbidities, signs and symptoms, laboratory and imaging finding, need for assisted ventilation and respiratory care unit follow up and mortality of COVID-19 patients were analyzed. Blood groups of 340 adult with COVID-19 were obtained and compared with that blood groups of the general population. Results: The blood group A was found statistically significantly more frequent among those infected with COVID-19 compared to the general population (37% versus 23.1% , P value = 0.001), whereas the frequency of blood group O was found significantly lower in COVID-19 patients than that in the general population (30% versus 48%, P value = 0.001).Blood groups type does not seen to affect the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients in term of clinical improvement, development of respiratory complication, need for assisted ventilation or death (P value >0.05). Conclusion: The results of this study demonstrate that the blood group A was found significantly more susceptible to COVID-19 infection, while blood group O was found significantly less susceptible to COVID-19. No significant association were found between the blood groups distribution among COVID-19 patients and p