Background Novel SARS‐CoV‐2 (COVID‐19) virus has rapidly spread worldwide and was declared a pandemic, making identifying and prioritizing individuals most at risk a critical challenge. The literature describes an association between blood groups and the susceptibility to various viral infections and their severity. Knowing if a specific blood group has more susceptibility to COVID‐19 may help improve understanding the pathogenesis and severity of the disease. We aimed to assess the association between ABO/RhD and COVID‐19 susceptibility and severity, and to compare results with similar studies in Saudi Arabia. Study Design and Methods This study was conducted between March and October 2021 on 600 patients confirmed positive for COVID‐19 infection. Patients' data were collected and analyzed. As a control, 8423 healthy blood donors were enrolled as a sample representative of the population for blood group distribution. Results More individuals had blood group B in the COVID‐19 group in comparison with the control group (24.2% vs. 18%), The opposite was observed among individuals of group O (39.5% vs. 47.3%). The B blood group was predictive of higher risk of mortality. No significant difference in the distribution of RhD was observed between the COVID‐19 and the control groups. Neither ABO nor RhD was significantly associated with the severity of COVID‐19. Discussion Although there was no significant association with the disease severity, the B blood group may be associated with a higher risk for COVID‐19 infection. Further studies with a larger sample size are necessary to evaluate this correlation.

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Introduction/Objective We have developed a local hospital transfusion guidelines to reduce and prevent the perioperative and the postoperative complications. This study was conducted to evaluate the outcome of practice for preoperative transfusion therapy in SCD patients in our institution. Methods A retrospective review of SCD patients undergoing surgery at King Fahd Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia was conducted between April 2005 and May 2010. The medical records were reviewed to define the perioperative risks and the postoperative complications in relation to the type of transfusion modality selected. Results The medical record of 75 sickle cell disease patients in whom the hematologists were consulted for their preoperative assessment. Preoperatively, 25.3 % had complete exchange transfusion (CETX), 17.3 % had partial exchange transfusion (PETX), 26.7 % had simple top up transfusion (STX) and 30.7 % had no transfusion (NTX). The postoperative complications were 20% vaso-occlusive crises (VOC), 2.7% acute chest syndrome (ACS), and 16% had fever. The mean duration for the hospital stay was 7.36 with SD of 5.83. There was no significant difference in the outcome between all types of transfusion modalities, the P value was (p 0.245), (p 0.282), (p 0.133), (p 0.220) for postoperative fever, VOC, ACS, and the length of hospital stay, respectively. However, The correlation was highly significant between the post-transfusion haemoglobin (Hb) level and the occurrence of postoperative fever (p 0.01) and VOC (p 0.03). Interestingly, SCD patients who received hydroxyurea were observed to have less postoperative complication like fever, and the result was highly significant (P<0.01), while those who received prophylactic heparin in the postoperative period were found to have a reduced length of hospital stay (p<0.01) and vaso-occlusive crises (p <0.01). Conclusion The guidelines for preoperative transfusion in SCD patients was effective in reducing the postoperative morbidity and mortality. However, the selection of the optimum regimen for different surgical types in sickle cell disease patients and the surgical situations where preoperative transfusion is needed were all established in this guidelines.