How does blood type affect the risk of contracting COVID-19?

People with the second blood group are more susceptible to COVID-19.

Scientists from the University of Kiel decrypted the genome of 1,980 residents of Spain and Italy, who were hospitalized with a severe coronavirus infection.

According to TASS, special mutations are 'to blame' for everything. Researchers compared sets of mutations in the genes of patients with different blood groups. In total, over 8.5 million genetic variations were identified. They tried to connect their presence with the risk of infection and the nature of the course of COVID-19 infection.

It turned out that the probability of infection and the nature of the disease were most affected by two mutations. The first concerned the SLC6A20 gene and the third chromosome, and the second concerned the blood group gene and the ninth chromosome. The first mutation increased the risk of complications during infection by about 1.77 times, and the second mutation increased the likelihood of infection by 1.32 times.

As you know, the SLC6A20 gene is directly related to the work of ACE2 receptors, which the new COVID-19 uses to penetrate human cells. Due to these mutations in the ninth chromosome, blood coagulation usually increases, which often leads to death in patients with COVID-19. And such mutations are more common in people with a second blood group, scientists say.

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