(tbsnews.net
>According to a preliminary study of patients in China who contracted the coronavirus, people with blood type A might be more vulnerable to infection by the new virus while those with type O seemingly more resistant.
Chinese medical researchers took blood group patterns of more than 2,000 patients infected with the virus in Wuhan and Shenzhen and compared them to local healthy populations, reported the South China Morning Post.
The research found that blood type A patients showed a higher rate of infection and they tended to develop more severe symptoms. While the researchers said the study was preliminary and more work was needed, they urged governments and medical facilities to consider blood type differences when planning mitigation measures or treating patients with the virus, known as Sars-CoV-2.
>"People of blood group A might need particularly strengthened personal protection to reduce the chance of infection," wrote the researchers led by Wang Xinghuan with the Centre for Evidence-Based and Translational Medicine at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University.
>"Sars-CoV-2-infected patients with blood group A might need to receive more vigilant surveillance and aggressive treatment," Wang added.
In contrast, "blood group O had a significantly lower risk for the infectious disease compared with non-O blood groups", according to a paper published by the researcher team on Medrxiv.org on March 11.
Of 206 patients who had died from COVID-19 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.
