RhD blood type significantly influences susceptibility to contract COVID-19 among a study population in Iraq

Majeed, K. R., Al-Fahad, D., Jalood, H. H., Hantosh, H. A., Ali, M. K., Sakthivel, S., Williams, H. F., Gibbins, J. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0372-5352, Patel, K., Baksh, M. F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3107-8815 and Vaiyapuri, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6006-6517 (2021) RhD blood type significantly influences susceptibility to contract COVID-19 among a study population in Iraq. F1000Research. ISSN 2046-1402 doi: 10.12688/f1000research.27777.1

Abstract/Summary

The ABO blood type has been reported to be associated with several diseases such as hepatitis and malaria. Recently, some studies have reported that people with O blood type are protected against COVID-19, while people with A blood type are more susceptible to contract this disease. Here, we analysed data from 5668 COVID-19 patients along with the same number of control samples in a study population in Iraq. Our analysis confirms that people with O blood type are protected partially against COVID-19. Notably, we demonstrate that people with RhD- are more susceptible to contract COVID-19 than people with RhD+ blood type. The blood types are associated with some clinical symptoms such as headache and asthenia of COVID-19, but there is no association with other symptoms. There is no association between blood types and deaths among COVID-19 patients. This study suggests that in addition to ABO, RhD blood type influences the susceptibility to contract COVID-19. Overall, we conclude that susceptibility/protection against COVID-19 may not be determined based only on blood types among the global population as this might vary based on a number of other factors such as ethnicity, geographical locations, occupation and the level of exposure to infected people.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/94855
Identification Number/DOI	10.12688/f1000research.27777.1
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Biomedical Sciences Life Sciences > School of Chemistry, Food and Pharmacy > School of Pharmacy > Division of Pharmacology
Publisher	F1000 Research Ltd.
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