KATHMANDU: A latest finding by researchers in Germany and Norway has suggested that people with blood type A may be more susceptible to sever symptoms of coronavirus.

In Nepal, 28.3 per cent of the population are A+ while 0.2 per cent of A- blood type.

According to the research, people falling in the said group have a 50 per cent increase in the likelihood that a coronavirus patient would need oxygen or go on a ventilator in case they contract the disease.

The researchers found two points in the human genome which were associated with an increased risk of respiratory failure in patients with COVID-19. One of these points is the gene that determines blood type.

“We cannot disentangle yet whether actually the blood group is the risk or some genetic variants that are linked to the blood groups. Using the blood groups as proxies, we estimate a 50 per cent higher protection for [blood type] O and a 50 per cent higher risk for A,” said Andre Franke, professor of molecular medicine at the University of Kiel, and lead author of the study.

The researchers took blood samples from 1,610 patients in hospitals in Italy and Spain who needed oxygen or had to go on a ventilator and compared these findings with 2,205 blood donors who did not have COVID-19.

Earlier a Chinese research based on blood group patterns of more than 2,000 patients infected with the virus in Wuhan and Shenzhen and compared them with local healthy people, had indicated that coronavirus patients with blood type A had a higher rate of infection and tended to get more severe symptoms.