Risks below: which blood type “protects” from coronavirus

Scientists have found which blood type is less susceptible to coronavirus

People with the first blood group are less likely to become infected with a coronavirus, American researchers found. This is due to genomic features that have yet to be studied.

Experts of the 23andMe genome decoding service found that people with the first blood type were about 18% less likely to be infected with SARS-COV-2 than people with other types. The work has not been reviewed or published in scientific journals; it can be found on the company’s website.

According to Ann Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe, Wojcicki and her colleagues drew attention to the differences in the symptoms and severity of COVID-19 in different populations. They want to know whether genetic factors have affected the symptoms. To learn more, the company’s experts interviewed about 750,000 customers, of which 10,000 were infected with the coronavirus.

“Since the differences are quite small, a very large sample is needed to study the differences between the groups,” the authors explain.

After adjusting for gender, weight, and age, the researchers found that people with the first blood type had a 9-18% lower likelihood of contracting COVID-19.

Overall, among the first group of owners, 1.3% were infected with the coronavirus. Among the owners of the second bloood group, 1.4% were infected, and the third and fourth places were -1.5%.

Experts also analyzed the infections among people infected with this virus, such as health workers. In this part of the respondents, the first type of infection accounted for 3.2%. The second type of infection accounted for 3.9%, the third type of infection accounted for 4%. And the fourth type of infection accounted for 4.1%. Here, the risk of coronavirus is 13-26% lower in people of the first blood type.

The authors of the work clarified that the protective effect works for both positive and negative Rh factor, although earlier works showed that this is true only in the case of a positive Rh factor.

Researchers have identified a variant of the ABO gene, responsible for the formation of a particular blood group, which was associated with a reduced risk of infection.

Now, they are recruiting a new set of topics to study this phenomenon in more detail.

“We are researching and looking for volunteers. Experts say that we hope we can use our research platform to better understand the differences in people’s responses to viruses. “Ultimately, we hope to publish the research results so that the scientific community can have COVID-19 to further understand.

The researchers relied on early research on the relationship between coronavirus and blood type. Therefore, Chinese scientists in March reported that the susceptibility to infection of the second blood group owner increased. A study of hospital coronavirus patients showed that their first blood group was 25.8%, the second blood group was 37.75%, the third blood group was 26.42%, and the fourth blood group was 10.03%.

Perhaps this is due to mutations leading to increased blood clotting in the second group-coronavirus causes increased thrombosis, which is especially dangerous for people in the second group of blood.

Later, research groups from Italy and Spain revealed the “protective” effect of the first blood type and emphasized its connection to the genome.

These works served as an impetus for a more detailed study of the relationship of blood groups and genetic characteristics with the risk of coronavirus infection and the severity of symptoms of COVID-19.

Earlier, the head of the FMBA Veronika Skvortsova paid attention to the increased vulnerability of the owners of the second blood group to coronavirus.