By Angela Oketch, NAIROBI Kenya
People with type A blood are at a higher risk of
contracting Covid-19 and severe illness while those with type O have a lower
risk, a new research has shown.
A recent genetic
analysis found that individuals with blood types A-positive, A-negative
and AB-positive and AB-negative were at a higher risk of contracting the
disease than non-A blood types.
The study was done to
show whether there is a relationship between blood type and susceptibility to
Covid-19 and involved more than 1,610 seriously ill Covid-19
patients in Italy and Spain, two of the hardest-hit countries.
It compared patients
from seven hospitals who were severely sick with those who were not sick and
conducted a meta-analysis of the two case-control panels.
The team found out that
people with type A blood had a 45 per cent increased risk of contracting the
coronavirus and developing respiratory failure compared to people with other
blood types.
On the other hand,
people with blood type O had a 35 per cent lower risk of developing severe
Covid-19.
People with type
0-negative blood a play a special role in blood donation, since they are
considered “universal donors”.
Dr Robert Glatter, an
emergency medicine doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, noted that
the genes controlling blood type might play a role in the make-up of cell
surfaces. The changes in cell-surface structures might influence the
susceptibility of the cell to infection by the coronavirus.
However, it is not
clear why blood type influences susceptibility to severe illness.
“We also know from
previous research that blood type affects clotting risk, and it's now quite
evident that critically ill patients with coronavirus demonstrate significant
clotting,” Dr Glatter explained.
The findings, according
to the researchers, will need further validation and investigation to gather
more information on the link between blood type and Covid-19 severity.
The findings, published
in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at the DNA of the two different
groups of people and found out that the variations were significantly tied to
how severely ill they people got. One of those regions contains the gene coding
for a person’s ABO blood type.
The researchers’ calls
for more studies on the findings could lead to the development of a vaccine or
drug for the virus. The experts, on the other hand, have repeatedly announced
that the pandemic is severe and dangerous for the elderly hence describing them
as a passive and vulnerable minority
According to the Centres for Disease Control (CDC), as one gets older, their
risk for severe illness from Covid-19 increases.
For instance, people in
their 50s are at higher risk for severe illness than people in their 40s.
Similarly, people in their 60s or 70s are, in general, at higher risk for
severe illness than people in their 50s.
The greatest risk for
severe illness from Covid-19 is among those aged 85 or older.
There are also other factors that can increase risk for severe illness, such as underlying medical conditions like diabetes, asthma, hypertension and HIV.
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