A large cohort study of the effects of Lewis, ABO, 13 other blood groups, and secretor status on COVID-19 susceptibility, severity, and long COVID-19

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have reported Blood type O to confer a lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, while secretor status and other blood groups have been suspected to have a similar effect as well. Study design and methods: To determine whether any other blood groups influence testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 severity, or prolonged COVID-19, we used a large cohort of 650,156 Danish blood donors with varying available data for secretor status and blood groups ABO, Rh, Colton, Duffy, Diego, Dombrock, Kell, Kidd, Knops, Lewis, Lutheran, MNS, P1PK, Vel, and Yt. Of these, 36,068 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 whereas 614,088 tested negative between 2020-02-17 and 2021-08-04. Associations between infection and blood groups were assessed using logistic regression models with sex and age as covariates. Results: The Lewis blood group antigen Lea displayed strongly reduced SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility OR 0.85 CI[0.79–0.93] p