Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Oct 27;4(20):4990-4993.
doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2020002657.

Reduced prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in ABO blood group O

Mike Bogetofte Barnkob  1   2 , Anton Pottegård  3 , Henrik Støvring  4 , Thure Mors Haunstrup  5 , Keld Homburg  6 , Rune Larsen  6 , Morten Bagge Hansen  7 , Kjell Titlestad  1 , Bitten Aagaard  5 , Bjarne Kuno Møller  8 , Torben Barington  1   2
Affiliations

Reduced prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in ABO blood group O

Mike Bogetofte Barnkob et al. Blood Adv. .

Abstract

Identification of risk factors for contracting and developing serious illness following infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is of paramount interest. Here, we performed a retrospective cohort analysis of all Danish individuals tested for SARS-CoV-2 between 27 February 2020 and 30 July 2020, with a known ABO and RhD blood group, to determine the influence of common blood groups on virus susceptibility. Distribution of blood groups was compared with data from nontested individuals. Participants (29% of whom were male) included 473 654 individuals tested for SARS-CoV-2 using real-time polymerase chain reaction (7422 positive and 466 232 negative) and 2 204 742 nontested individuals, accounting for ∼38% of the total Danish population. Hospitalization and death from COVID-19, age, cardiovascular comorbidities, and job status were also collected for confirmed infected cases. ABO blood groups varied significantly between patients and the reference group, with only 38.41% (95% confidence interval [CI], 37.30-39.50) of the patients belonging to blood group O compared with 41.70% (95% CI, 41.60-41.80) in the controls, corresponding to a relative risk of 0.87 (95% CI, 0.83-0.91) for acquiring COVID-19. This study identifies ABO blood group as a risk factor for SARS-CoV-2 infection but not for hospitalization or death from COVID-19.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict-of-interest disclosure: H.S. has received personal fees from Bristol Myers Squibb, Novartis, and Roche. The remaining authors declare no competing financial interests.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Richardson S, Hirsch JS, Narasimhan M, et al. ; and the Northwell COVID-19 Research Consortium . Presenting characteristics, comorbidities, and outcomes among 5700 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the New York City area. JAMA. 2020;323(20):2052. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhao J, Yang Y, Huang H, et al. . Relationship between the ABO blood group and the COVID-19 susceptibility [published online ahead of print 4 August 2020]. Clin Infect Dis. doi:10.1101/2020.03.11.20031096.
    1. Zietz M, Tatonetti NP. Testing the association between blood type and COVID-19 infection, intubation, and death [published online ahead of print 21 July 2020]. medRxiv. doi:10.1101/2020.04.08.20058073.
    1. Kolin DA, Kulm S, Elemento O. Clinical and genetic characteristics of Covid-19 patients from UK Biobank [published online ahead of print 5 May 2020]. medRxiv doi:10.1101/2020.05.05.2007. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Li J, Wang X, Chen J, Cai Y, Deng A, Yang M. Association between ABO blood groups and risk of SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. Br J Haematol. 2020;190(1):24-27. - PMC - PubMed

Substances