ABO Blood Groups and Incidence of COVID-19 in the Mass Gathering Events in Borriana (Spain), March 2020: A Retrospective Cohort Study

• Main Authors: Salvador Domènech-Montoliu (Author), Joan Puig-Barberà (Author), Olga Guerra-Murcia (Author), María Rosario Pac-Sa (Author), Alejandro Orrico-Sanchéz (Author), Lorna Gómez-Lanas (Author), Diego Sala-Trull (Author), Carmen Domènech-Leon (Author), Alba Del Rio-González (Author), Manuel Sánchez-Urbano (Author), Paloma Satorres-Martinez (Author), Marta Latorre-Poveda (Author), Sara Ferrando-Rubert (Author), Laura Aparisi-Esteve (Author), Gema Badenes-Marques (Author), Roser Blasco-Gari (Author), Juan Casanova-Suarez (Author), María Fontal-Carcel (Author), María Gil-Fortuño (Author), Noelia Hernández-Pérez (Author), David Jovani-Sales (Author), Laura López-Diago (Author), Cristina Notari-Rodríguez (Author), Oscar Pérez-Olaso (Author), María Angeles Romeu-Garcia (Author), Raquel Ruíz-Puig (Author), Alberto Arnedo-Pena (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: MDPI AG, 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

Our objective was to estimate the incidence of COVID-19 and the ABO blood Groups in the mass-gathering events (MGEs) during the Falles Festival in Borriana (Spain) from 6-10 March 2020. We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study and measured anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and the ABO of participants. We performed laboratory COVID-19 tests and obtained the ABO in 775 subjects (72.8% of the original exposed cohort): O-group (45.2%), A-group (43.1%), B-group (8.5%) and AB-group (3.4%). Adjusted for confounding factors, including COVID-19 exposure during the MGEs, attack rates of COVID-19 for each ABO group were 55.4%, 59.6%, 60.2%, and 63.7%. The adjusted relative risks were for O-group 0.93 (95% Confidence Interval [CI] 0.83-1.04), for A-group 1.06 (95% CI 0.94-1.18), for B-group 1.04 (95%CI 0.88-1.24), and for AB-group 1.11 (95% CI 0.81-1.51) with no significant differences. Conclusions: Our results suggest no effect of ABO on COVID-19 incidence. We observed weak but not significant protection of the O-group and not a significantly greater infection risk for the remaining groups compared with the O-group. More studies are needed to resolve the controversies regarding the association between ABO and COVID-19.

Item Description

10.3390/epidemiologia4010007
2673-3986