Can Influenza Vaccine Reduce COVID-19 Severity?

COVID-19 patients vaccinated against flu are less likely to visit the emergency department and get admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).It also reduces the risk of stroke, sepsis and DVT in COVID-19 patients.

Influenza vaccine may provide vital protection against COVID-19, concludes a new research presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID).

Immunizing the world against COVID-19 is a discouraging challenge because the production and distribution of vaccines are not meeting the expectation of vaccinating large numbers of population before start of 2023.

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‘Influenza vaccine can give protection against severe effects of COVID-19.’

Ms Susan Taghioff, of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, USA, and colleagues carried out a retrospective analysis of the de-identified electronic health records present in the TriNetX research database of more than 70 million patients to identify two groups of 37,377 patients.

The two groups were matched for factors that may affect their COVID-19 severity like age, gender, ethnicity, smoking and health problems such as diabetes, obesity and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The first group members received the flu vaccine between two weeks and six months before being diagnosed with COVID-19. Those in the second group also had COVID-19 but were not vaccinated against flu.

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Later they compared the incidence of 15 adverse outcomes between the two groups within 120 days of testing positive for COVID-19.

The analysis revealed that those who had not received the flu vaccine were more likely (up to 20%) to get admitted in the ICU.

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They were also more likely to visit the emergency department (up to 58% ) and develop sepsis (up to 45% ), stroke (up to 58% ) and a DVT (up to 40%) . Whereas the death risk is not reduced.

How exactly the flu vaccine provides protection against COVID-19 is not known but most theories say that they boost the innate immune system – a general defense that are not tailored to any particular illness.

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More research is needed to prove and better understand the possible link but in the future the flu shot can help to provide increased protection in countries where the COVID-19 vaccine is in short supply.

Despite of all these findings, the influenza vaccine is not a replacement for the COVID-19 vaccine and we advise everyone to receive their COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible.

Source-Medindia