Country-level factors dynamics and ABO/Rh blood groups contribution to COVID-19 mortality
Alfonso Monaco1, Ester Pantaleo1,2,3, Nicola Amoroso1,4
1Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Sezione di Bari, Via A. Orabona 4, 70125, Bari, Italy.
Insights
Blood group B+ is a significant factor in COVID-19 mortality across all pandemic stages. This finding helps identify at-risk populations and inform public health strategies for better COVID-19 containment.
Area of Science:
- Epidemiology
- Immunology
- Genetics
Background:
- Identifying COVID-19 mortality factors is crucial for effective containment and protecting vulnerable groups.
- Previous research focused mainly on the early pandemic wave, examining factors like obesity and healthcare capacity.
- The role of ABO/Rh blood groups in COVID-19 outcomes requires further investigation across different pandemic phases.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between ABO/Rh blood groups and COVID-19 mortality.
- To analyze these associations across three distinct stages of the pandemic.
- To control for demographic, economic, and healthcare system confounding factors.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a machine learning approach to analyze large-scale data.
- Examined the frequency of ABO/Rh blood groups in relation to COVID-19 mortality.
- Accounted for potential confounding variables including demographics, economics, and healthcare indicators.
Main Results:
- The frequency of the B+ blood group was identified as a significant factor associated with COVID-19 mortality.
- This association remained consistent across all three investigated stages of the pandemic.
- Machine learning models confirmed the predictive importance of blood groups for COVID-19 outcomes.
Conclusions:
- ABO/Rh blood groups, particularly B+, are linked to COVID-19 severity and fatal outcomes.
- Blood group typing may aid in stratifying risk and tailoring public health interventions.
- Further research should explore the biological mechanisms underlying these associations.
Abstract:
The identification of factors associated to COVID-19 mortality is important to design effective containment measures and safeguard at-risk categories. In the last year, several investigations have tried to ascertain key features to predict the COVID-19 mortality tolls in relation to country-specific dynamics and population structure. Most studies focused on the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic observed in the first half of 2020. Numerous studies have reported significant associations between COVID-19 mortality and relevant variables, for instance obesity, healthcare system indicators such as hospital beds density, and bacillus Calmette-Guerin immunization. In this work, we investigated the role of ABO/Rh blood groups at three different stages of the pandemic while accounting for demographic, economic, and health system related confounding factors. Using a machine learning approach, we found that the "B+" blood group frequency is an important factor at all stages of the pandemic, confirming previous findings that blood groups are linked to COVID-19 severity and fatal outcome.
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