Epidemiologia (Jan 2023)

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

  • Salvador Domènech-Montoliu,
  • Joan Puig-Barberà,
  • Olga Guerra-Murcia,
  • María Rosario Pac-Sa,
  • Alejandro Orrico-Sanchéz,
  • Lorna Gómez-Lanas,
  • Diego Sala-Trull,
  • Carmen Domènech-Leon,
  • Alba Del Rio-González,
  • Manuel Sánchez-Urbano,
  • Paloma Satorres-Martinez,
  • Marta Latorre-Poveda,
  • Sara Ferrando-Rubert,
  • Laura Aparisi-Esteve,
  • Gema Badenes-Marques,
  • Roser Blasco-Gari,
  • Juan Casanova-Suarez,
  • María Fontal-Carcel,
  • María Gil-Fortuño,
  • Noelia Hernández-Pérez,
  • David Jovani-Sales,
  • Laura López-Diago,
  • Cristina Notari-Rodríguez,
  • Oscar Pérez-Olaso,
  • María Angeles Romeu-Garcia,
  • Raquel Ruíz-Puig,
  • Alberto Arnedo-Pena

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/epidemiologia4010007
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 1
pp. 63 – 73

Abstract

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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.

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