Association Between ABO Blood Group System and COVID-19 Severity.

OBJECTIVES: A possible association between blood group systems (ABO and Rh) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severity has recently been investigated by various studies with conflicting results. However, due to variations in the prevalence of the ABO and Rh blood groups in different populations, their association with COVID-19 might be varied as well. Therefore, we conducted this study on Libyan participants to further investigate this association and make population-based data available to the worldwide scientific community. METHODS: In this case-control study, ABO and Rh blood groups in 419 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Zawia, Libya, and 271 healthy controls were compared using descriptive statistics and χ 2 tests. RESULTS: Blood group A was significantly more prevalent in patients with severe COVID-19 (64/125; 51.2%) than in patients with nonsevere COVID-19 (108/294, 36.7%) (P < .034), whereas the O blood group prevalence was higher in nonsevere COVID-19 cases (131/294, 44.5%) compared with severe cases (43/125, 34.4%) (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: The results showed a significant association between blood group A and the severity of COVID-19, whereas patients with blood group O showed a low risk of developing severe COVID-19 infection. No significant association was found between Rh and susceptibility/severity of the disease.

Potential risk factors for mortality in patients with COVID-19: A retrospective study

Although severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection caused more than five million deaths throughout the world and more than five thousand deaths in Libya, a little is known about the mortality rate and the risk factors for death from this serious infectious disease in Libya. Thus, it is aimed in this study to identify the potential risk factors for mortality from SARS-CoV-2 infections among 176 Libyan COVID-19 patients in Zawia city. This research is a retrospective cohort study that was conducted on 176 randomly selected volunteers who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 during a period of December2020 to February 2021 in Zawia city, Libya. Following filling the prepared validated questionnaire by COVID-19 patients, the data was analyzed to determine the previously mentioned risk factors. The mean age(SD) of the total 176 participated COVID-19 patients was 45.06 (± 17.7) and the mortality rate among these total involved cases (mild to severe cases) was 10.8%. It is found that the mortality among the severe COVID19 cases was 41.3% and the mean age (SD) of COVID-19 deaths was 69.1 years (13.8) and 73.7% of them were 60 years old or older. In addition, it is found that 63.2% of the SARS-CoV-2 deaths were females and 78.9% of them had a positive history of chronic diseases. Moreover, it was found that the most common chronic diseases among COVID-19 deaths are diabetes mellitus and hypertension (73.3% and 53.3%, respectively). Collectively, it is concluded that COVID-19 elderly female patients aging 60 years or older with a positive history of chronic disease are more likely at high risk for death from SARS-CoV-2 infection among the participated COVID cases