Association between ABO blood groups and COVID-19 infection, severity and demise: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background and aims

The COVID-19 spreads rapidly around the world which has brought a global health crisis. The pathogen of COVID-19 is SARS-COV-2, and previous studies have proposed the relationship between ABO blood group and coronavirus. Here, we aim to delve into the association between ABO blood group and COVID-19 infection, severity and demise.

Methods

The relevant studies were retrieved from five databases: PubMed, MedRxiv, BioRxiv,Web of Science and CNKI. Members of cases(symptomatic cases, severe cases, died cases) and controls(asymptomatic controls, non-severe controls, alive controls) were extracted from collected studies. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated and interpreted from extracted data. Publication bias and sensitivity analysis were also applied to confirm our discovery.

Results

Overall 31,100 samples were included in the analysis. Compared to other ABO blood type, an increased odds of infecting COVID-19 among individuals with A blood group (OR: 1.249, 95%CI: 1.114–1.440, P < 0.001) and a decreased odds of infecting COVID-19 among individuals with blood group O (OR: 0.699, 95%CI: 0.635–0.770, P < 0.001) were found. Besides, individuals with blood group AB seems to link a higher risk to COVID-19 severity (OR: 2.424, 95%CI: 0.934–6.294) and demise (OR: 1.348, 95%CI: 0.507–3.583). Meantime, individuals with O blood group might had lower risk to COVID-19 severity (OR: 0.748, 95%CI: 0.556–1.007), and individuals with B blood group were likely to relate a lower risk to COVID-19 demise.

Conclusions

The current meta-analysis suggest that blood type A might be more susceptible to infect COVID-19 while blood type O might be less susceptible to infect COVID-19; there were no correlation between ABO blood group and severity or demise of COVID-19. However, more investigation and research are warranted to clarify the relationship between COVID-19 and ABO blood type.

Highlights

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  A novel coronavirus, SARS-Cov-2 was emerged in December 2019 in China.

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  There were more than 5.1 million cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in the whole world, and more than 332,000 people had died by May 22, 2020.

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  This is the first review and a meta-analysis about relationship between between ABO blood group and COVID-19 infection, severity and demise

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  We found that individuals with blood type A are related a higher risk and individuals with blood type O are related a lower risk to infect SARS-CoV-2.