Associations of Clinical Factors and Blood Groups With the Severity of COVID-19 Infection in Makkah City, Saudi Arabia

CONTEXT: The possible associations between the different blood groups and clinical factors with COVID-19 infection among patients in Makkah city. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between ABO blood groups and COVID-19 infection in patients who were tested positive and to elucidate the most common ABO blood groups with a higher infectivity of COVID-19 and disease association. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was an observational cross-sectional study that included COVID-19 patients diagnosed with PCR and who were hospitalized in Al-Noor Specialist Hospital (Makkah) during the period between March to November 2020. The ABO and Rhesus blood groups alongside the clinical characteristics were determined and retrieved from medical records and HESN of the Ministry of Health of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). RESULTS: The overall confirmed COVID-19 cases included in this study were 1,583 patients who underwent positive PCR testing between March and November 2020. The frequencies of blood groups were as follows: group O(+) (37%), group A(+) (29.2%), group B(+) (22.6%), group AB(+) (5.1%), group O(-) (2.8%), group B(-) (1.8%), group A(-) (1.1%), and group AB(-) (0.4%). However, no significant correlations were observed for ABO groups and Rh types with the severity of COVID-19 illness. Conversely, signs and symptoms of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), pneumonia, and respiratory failure symptoms, alongside a history of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, chronic kidney diseases, and congestive heart failure significantly increased the risk of death from COVID-19 infection. Moreover, the rates of fever, cough, and asthma were markedly lower in the deceased group compared with the recovered group of patients. CONCLUSION: The association between the different blood groups with the prevalence and mortality of COVID-19 among infected patients has yet to be elucidated as we found no significant differences in the observed versus expected distribution of ABO phenotypes among the included cases. The prevalence of RDS, pneumonia, and respiratory failure was found higher among hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the deceased group. However, other factors such as fever, cough, and asthma appeared to be more significantly lower than in the recovered group.