(Reuters) – Blood type does not affect susceptibility to COVID-19 in U.S. patients, a new study suggests.
Researchers analyzed data on nearly 108,000 people from Utah, Idaho, and Nevada who were tested for COVID-19 and whose blood type was listed in their medical records. None of the blood types was linked with the risk of becoming infected, need for hospitalization or intensive care, according to a report published in JAMA Network Open.
Smaller studies from China, Italy and Spain have linked type A blood to higher COVID-19 risks and type O blood to lower risks, and a large study from Denmark tied blood type to COVID-19 severity. Studies from New York and Boston – like this new study – found no such links.
Study coauthor Dr. Jeffrey Anderson of the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City said in a statement that the effects of blood type can vary across populations.
“We looked at a lot of risk factors as to who might need to be hospitalized and who might need more advanced care, and… for our population at least, blood type is not on that list,” Anderson said.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/32rVzVb JAMA Network Open, online April 5, 2021.
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