• Mike Bogetofte Barnkob, Anton Pottegård, Henrik Støvring, Thure Mors Haunstrup, Keld Homburg, Rune Larsen, Morten Bagge Hansen, Kjell Titlestad, Bitten Aagaard, Bjarne Kuno Møller, and Torben Barington.
• Department of Clinical Immunology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
• Blood Adv. 2020 Oct 27; 4 (20): 4990-4993.

AbstractIdentification 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.© 2020 by The American Society of Hematology.

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