According to a study in China, people with blood group A are more likely to be infected with COVID-19 and they develop more severe complications.
On the other hand, those with Type O are said to be more resistant to COVID-19.
The study was conducted by Center for Evidence Based and Translational Medicine at Zhongman Hospital of Wuhan University, China. The findings of this study were reported by South China Morning Post and many other international publications.
“Proportion of Type A patients both infected and killed by the coronavirus was found to be “significantly” higher than those with the same blood type among the general public. On the other hand, Type O patients comprised a smaller proportion of those who were infected as well as killed by the coronavirus.”
During this study, the researchers made a comparison of 2,173 cases of confirmed COVID-19 patients in Wuhan as well as in Shenzhen with 3,694 healthy patients in Wuhan area.
Further, they examined records of 206 people who had died of Covid-19 and found out that 85 of these victims were of Blood Type-A while 52 were of blood Type-O.
Hence, they concluded that: “People of blood group A might need particularly strengthened personal protection to reduce the chance of infection.”
Despite people with Blood Group O being more resident, they still need to be vigilant and follow guidelines set by World Health Organization (WHO) and government.
According to a study conducted in 1992 in Nairobi City, it was estimated that 47.4 percent of the population were of Blood Group O, 26.2% were of blood Group A and 22% percent were of blood group B. I do not have access to more recent data on distribution of blood groups in Nairobi or Kenya in that case. But from these preliminary data, we can say that there is a high number of people with Blood Group O in Kenya and hence our population may be more resistant.
That notwithstanding, you should note that this is a preliminary study, more research needs to be done by other researchers around the world in order to confirm the findings.
