Since the beginning of the pandemic, several studies have revealed a link between the ABO blood group and COVID-19. The objective of this study is to determine the association between the ABO blood group and COVID-19 susceptibility in Baghdad city, Iraq. We compared ABO blood group distributions in 414 (269 female, 145 male) COVID-19 patients with 56 (29 female, 27 male) healthy controls to see if there was any link between COVID-19 disease and blood group during February to July 2020. Their ages ranged from less than 10 to more than 70 years. We found that females with blood group O and Rh (positive) were associated with an increased risk of infection, while blood group AB and Rh (negative) were associated with a decreased risk. Cases aged 20-29 were the most infected with COVID-19 among other age groups. We think this is the first study that found the relationship between Covid-19 and O blood type in our country and the only one in the world literature.
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