Ifah SakinahIf you are one of those travellers who have visited countries emerging as the major hotspots for Covid-19 and have blood type ‘A’, you may be more vulnerable to coronavirus. According to a preliminary study of patients in China who became infected with the novel coronavirus, people with blood type ‘A’ may be more susceptible to infection by the disease.
blood type coronavirus study
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Medical researchers in China took blood group patterns of more than 2,000 patients infected with the virus in Wuhan & 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.
Gao Yingdai, a researcher with the State Key Laboratory of Experimental Haematology in Tianjin who was not involved in the study, commented that the new study “may be helpful to medical professionals, but ordinary citizens should not take the statistics too seriously”. “If you are type ‘A’, there is no need to panic. It does not mean you will be infected 100 percent.”
On the other hand, individuals with blood type ‘O’ have a ‘notably lower risk’ of contracting the virus in comparison to those with non-’O’ blood groups. However, this does not mean that they should refrain from carrying out good hand-washing practises and basic hygiene measures.
blood type coronavirus study
The research team are urging governments and medical facilities to ruminate over blood type differences when caring for patients with confirmed infection or while planning measures to improve the situation.
Of the 206 patients who had succumbed to the deadly disease in Wuhan, 85 had type ‘A’ blood, which was 63 per cent more than the 52 with type ‘O’. The pattern existed across different age and gender groups.
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The study was undertaken by scientists and doctors from cities across China comprising Beijing, Wuhan, Shanghai and Shenzhen. The preliminary report published on Medrxiv.org on 11 March has not been corroborated by other academics, and the authors cautioned that there could be risks involved in utilising the study to guide current clinical practice.
