ABO Blood Groups and COVID-19 Infection
Abstract Introduction/Objective There exists contradictory evidence in the literature that ABO blood group may have some impact on risk of COVID-19 infection. Some argue that the blood group A may confer a higher susceptibility to infection and thus be overrepresented in those who test positive for COVID-19, though other studies in the literature do not support this. Therefore, we present a regional Veterans Administration Medical Center’s (VAMC) experience early in the pandemic to provide a reference on blood group and risk of testing positive early in the pandemic for a veteran population. Methods/Case Report A retrospective review of all positive SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed for all RT-PCR tests collected at a regional VAMC from March 17th, 2020 to May 20th, 2020 was performed to collect ABO blood group information. Patients with no known ABO blood group were excluded. Results (if a Case Study enter NA) There were 81 patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 with a known ABO blood group during the study period. This group had an age range of 45 to 99, consisted of 80 males and 1 female, and was racially proportioned at 57 African Americans (70.3%), 2 Asian Americans (2.5%), 1 Hispanic American (1.2%), 20 Caucasian Americans (24.7%), and one of unknown race (1.2%). The blood group distribution among these 81 patients was as follows: 39 were O+ (48.1%), 3 were O- (3.7%), 15 were B+ (18.5%), 3 were AB+ (3.7%), 18 A+ (22.2%), and 3 were A- (3.7%). Conclusion Comparison with the known distribution of ABO groups in the general population reveals that the proportion of blood groups of those testing positive are similar. This provides support to the proposition that the ABO type may not predispose significantly to COVID-19 infection.