London, March 18, 2020 (AltAfrica)-People with Type-blood are susceptible and significantly more likely to catch coronavirus than those with Type O according to a new study by Chinese scientists

The Chinese academics have revealed that their study was gathered from work in Wuhan – where the outbreak was first reported.

People with Type O blood make up 32 per cent of people in Wuhan and 25 percent of deaths from Coronavirus were those with this blood type.

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However the researchers found out that those with Type A blood are more likely to die from COVID-19.

According to the study, in the general population Type O blood (34%) is more common than A (32%).

But among COVID-19 patients according to the research people with Type O accounted for just 25%, whereas Type A made up 41%.

But these latest findings are yet to be scrutinised by other academics in peer review and the researchers are unable to explain why infection varies by blood type.

The Chinese researchers assessed 2,173 people who had been diagnosed with the coronavirus, including 206 people who died after contracting the virus, from three hospitals in Hubei.

The academics compared the data of the infected Wuhan patients with 3,694 non-infected people in the same region.

Of the 206 patients in the study who died, 85 had type A blood, equivalent to 41 per cent of all deaths.

The researchers write in the findings that “Blood group O was associated with a lower risk of death compared with non-O groups. To the contrary, blood group A was associated with a higher risk of death compared with non-A groups.”

On online platform medrxiv the researchers said “People of blood group A might need particularly strengthened personal protection to reduce the chance of infection.

Sars-CoV-2-infected patients with blood group A might need to receive more vigilant surveillance and aggressive treatment.”

They further wrote in the paper that this “might be helpful to introduce ABO blood typing in both patients and medical personnel as a routine part of the management of Sars-CoV-2 and other coronavirus infections, to help define the management options and assess risk exposure levels of people.”

But Gao Yingdai, a researcher with the State Key Laboratory of Experimental Haematology in Tianjin, told South China Morning Post that “[The study] may be helpful to medical professionals, but ordinary citizens should not take the statistics too seriously.

If you are type A, there is no need to panic. It does not mean you will be infected 100 percent.

If you are type O, it does not mean you are absolutely safe, either. You still need to wash your hands and follow the guidelines issued by authorities.”

The coronavirus pandemic has infected almost 200,000 people and killed more than 7,800 worldwide. More than 3,000 deaths were in China, the disease’s ground-zero.