ABO blood group antigens may be associated with increased susceptibility to schistosomiasis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Schistosomiasis or bilharzia is a widespread parasitic disease caused by blood flukes of the genus Schistosoma. Some factors have been investigated previously regarding their effect on the pathophysiological mechanism of human schistosomiasis, but the possible influence of the ABO blood group on the severity of Schistosoma infection has been the most promising. Hence, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to further investigate the association of the ABO blood group with schistosomiasis susceptibility. Selected publications were retrieved from PubMed up to 21 August 2018, for related studies written in English. Number of cases (with schistosomiasis) and controls (without schistosomiasis) were extracted across all ABO blood types. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed, pooled and interpreted. Subgroup analysis by the species of Schistosoma infecting the population and the participants’ ethnicity was also performed. The overall analysis revealed heterogeneity in the outcomes, which warranted the identification of the cause using the Galbraith plot. Post-outlier outcomes of the pooled ORs show that individuals who are not blood type O are more susceptible (OR: 1.40; 95% CI: 1.17–1.67; PA < 0.001) to schistosomiasis than those who are blood type O (OR: 0.71; 95% CI: 0.60–0.85; PA < 0.001). Subgroup analysis yielded the same observations regardless of the species of schistosome and the ethnicity of the participants. Results of this meta-analysis suggest that individuals who are blood type B and A are more susceptible to schistosomiasis than those who are blood type O. However, more studies are needed to confirm our claims.

Schistosomiasis among pregnant women in Njombe-Penja health district, Cameroon

“…Women of the O blood group were more susceptible to S. haematobium infection. This is not in line with previous findings [38,39] that showed the contrary. This might be due to the smaller sample size in our study and calls for further investigations in this area.…”

Association between ABO blood groups and COVID-19 infection, severity and demise: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Secondly, Koike C et al suggested that anti-A and/or anti-B antibodies may neutralize the virus to effectively protect body when polymorphic blood group antigens expressed on the surfaces of red blood cells and epithelia are utilized as attachment receptors by HIV ( Koike et al, 2007 ), perhaps for COVID-19, anti-A antibodies and/or anti-B antibodies also have the effect of neutralizing the SARS-COV-2. Thirdly, when combined anti-A or anti-B with cells of schistosome, it was suggested the unique ABO blood group antigen could confer appropriate specificity upon them ( Gardas and Kościelak, 1973 ; Dean, 1974 ; Goldring et al, 1976 ), which was regarded as one of the interpretations why O type blood is not prone to schistosomiasis ( Tiongco et al, 2018 ). Finally, it has been suggested that blood group O could prevent severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria through the mechanism of reducing rosettes ( Ja et al, 2007 ; Degarege et al, 2019 ), so we speculated that blood type O has a similar effect on SARS-COV-2.…”

Relationship between blood type and outcomes following COVID-19 infection

“… 29 Clinically, blood types have been linked to bacterial, parasitic, and viral infections. 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 One study, in particular, found that ABO polymorphism was associated with susceptibility to infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-1. 30 Further investigations discovered a protective effect of anti-A antibodies against intracellular uptake of the SARS-CoV-1 virus.…”