After a few pieces of research, there is a great dilemma whether people with blood group A at higher risk of catching COVID-19
Covid19 infection is new to the world and we don’t know much about it.
It is now evident that corona is deadlier for people who are elder than 60 years of age. But, there are new questions that are not yet clear.
Research
Some researches point out that people with blood group A at higher risk of catching COVID-19
Recently a study was conducted on 2173 patients in China about who had been infected with a disease known as Covid-19.
This study says that people with blood group A may be more at risk of COVID-19 infection and it has not been yet peer-reviewed.
The research also points out that people with blood group O are the least infected.
Researchers gathered the blood group examples of patients from the Wuhan and Shenzhen provinces. These people were infected with the virus in the early stages of the spread.
This was then compared with the local healthy people. It was found that people having blood group A were infected more and developed severe symptoms.
Is the study valid?
The study is still in preliminary stages and more work is still needed.
The government and medical groups were told to look into the blood types when treating the patients infected with Sars-CoV-2.
Wang Xinghuan who was leading the research at the Centre for Evidence-Based and Translational Medicine at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University wrote,
” People of blood group A might need particularly strengthened personal protection to reduce the chance of infection and might need to receive more vigilant surveillance and aggressive treatment”.
They even published a paper on Medrxiv.org recently. People with blood group O were at a lower risk of getting infected with Covid-19 as compared with other blood groups.
206 Covid-19 patients who had died in Wuhan were studied. 85 of them had blood group A which was 63% more than those having blood group O.
Wang also wrote,
” It might be helpful to introduce ABO blood typing in both patients and medical personnel as a routine part of the management of Sars-CoV-2 and other coronavirus infections, to help define the management options and assess risk exposure levels of people.“
Various doctors from cities like Beijing, Wuhan, Shanghai, etc. participated in this study.
Their study has not yet been accepted for publication. The authors forewarned that there could be risk involved if their study is used as a guide in clinical practice.
Blood group A at higher risk
Gao Yingdai from the State Key Laboratory of Experimental Haematology in Tianjin pointed out a relevant point. He was not part of this research.
He says that the results of the blood group study could improve if tested with a larger group of people.
2000 people participated in this study. This is not a small group. This number is negligible, considering the total number of people infected globally.
Gao further indicated that the study does not provide any clear explanation about the aspect of molecular interaction. He was pointing to the interaction between the virus and different types of red blood cells.
Some previous studies have also studied the blood type difference in diseases like Norwalk virus and Sars Virus.
Gao said that the studies should help the medical fraternity. Gao cautioned that these studies are not for the public to interpret.
It does not mean that if you are Blood group A, you will be infected 100%. Neither it means that if you are type O, you are safe.
People should still follow the health and safety guidelines issued by the authorities to protect themselves from Covid-19
How are COVID-19 and diabetes-related?
As it is evident for thousands of cases that co-morbidity is the main cause of death of elderly or young patients. Diabetes is one of the major co-morbidity.
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