New revelations about the novel Coronavirus keep coming out every other day. A new study shows that your blood type and your genetics can determine how severely you will get affected by the COVID-19.
This study was published in New England Journal of Medicine, and it explains why some people are getting seriously sick while some people are not showing any symptoms at all.
What blood types are running high risk?
One of the symptoms discovered later was that people are getting blood clots which can travel to the brain or heart, and cause a stroke.
The study found that people with type A blood are at a higher risk of getting infected, and falling severely ill.
On the other hand, people with type O blood have a much lower risk of contracting the virus.
It’s actually the overactive immune system that is killing people, not the virus
Researchers say that it doesn’t mean that your blood type is what causing or triggering the infection. It means that out of all the patients they studied, it was found that patients with different blood types had different reactions to the Coronavirus.
The difference in response is also related to the person’s immune system and its effectiveness which has a strong genetic component.
Most of the dying patients succumb because of organ failure which is not directly caused by the virus, but by the overreacting immune system which triggers the organ damage.
This doctor has something to say:
Scientists say that this research will help us in finding more suitable drugs and vaccines in the future.
Dr. Ogechika Alozie, M.D. from the Texas Medical Association’s COVID-19 Task Force said:
“It seems people with blood type A are needing more oxygen, support almost 50% greater risk of needing oxygen than those with blood type O – they have 50% less chance of having a severe case of COVID-19.”
He also said: “It’s not clear why that is and there are a whole host of genotypes depending on what type of blood you have, but it seems to give us a signal on how we can treat and focus care and treatment to those that are going to have the highest risk down the line.”
“It gives us a little more insight into who we need to focus on, not that we would take away care from anyone else like type O instead of type A, but it gives the hospital team another clue to say, ‘This may be someone I need to take a closer look at, to make sure they are safe the days they are in the hospital,’” he added.
Can type O people save the type A people by giving their blood?
But question drawn is this, can people with type O blood save the others? People have questioned that since type O- is the universal donor, does it mean we can transfuse this blood into other people to improve their chances of survival?
The simple answer is that it’s not possible. Even if a person with, say Type B+ blood group gets an O- blood transfusion, their body will develop antibodies typical of a B+ blood type, and the infusion of O- blood will only increase the volume of their blood while helping in no way about the virus infections.
Plus, we can’t do it because we don’t really know why people with certain blood types run a higher risk.
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