Zeitschrift für Virologie und antivirale Forschung

Do ABO and Rhesus Blood Groups Affect Susceptibility to, and Prognosis of Ebola Virus Infection?

Brian Conton, Sahr Gevao, Foday Sahr, Osman Kargbo, Philip Kamara, Abdulai Bah, Thomas Massaquoi, Baimba Idriss, Foday Sesay, Adeshola Williams, Samuel Baker, Sylvester Nicol and James B Russell

In 2014, the largest Ebola outbreak known to man, thundered through West Africa. It infected close to 30,000 people, and killed over 11,000. Yet, though we have known about Ebola for almost forty years, little data is available on survival and infection patterns of this viral hemorrhagic disease. Examining parallels between blood groups and human disease susceptibility is a valid, and increasingly used method of finding such patterns. This study permitted the observation of the different blood groups in Ebola infected patients and survivors. This was compared against the blood group distribution of the general population as well as those within the study, who succumbed to the disease. Blood group A in particular rose to 36.36% of the survivor population in our study, when it only forms 21.1% of the normal population. It formed 9% of the deceased group. The results show that the disparities in the blood group profiles of the general population, infected patients, survivors and deceased are marked enough to infer that ABO and Rhesus blood groups could be a factor in the infection and survival of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD)