Flu vaccine protects against severe COVID-19



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A recent study by investigators at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami found that the flu vaccine can potentially provide life-saving protection against serious illness in people infected with COVID-19.

The results of the study were published in the journal PLOS ONE.

“Having access to real-time data from millions of patients is an incredibly powerful research tool,” said Devinder Singh, lead author of the study. “By asking important questions, my team was able to observe an association between the influenza vaccine and reduced morbidity in COVID-19 patients. “

For the study, the team of investigators analyzed the anonymized records of 74,754 patients from the TriNetX research database. The patients were divided into 2 groups which were matched for factors that could influence their risk of susceptibility to severe COVID-19.

The first group must have been vaccinated against influenza 2 weeks to 6 months before being diagnosed with COVID-19. The second group had a confirmed COVID-19 infection but was not vaccinated against the flu.

The results of the study showed that those who had not received the flu shot were up to 20% more likely to have been admitted to the ICU. They were also 58% more likely to go to the emergency room, 45% more likely to develop sepsis, 58% more likely to have a stroke, and 40% more likely to have DVT.

Additionally, investigators found that 176 patients would need to get the flu shot to avoid 1 unwanted outcome.

“The continued promotion of the influenza vaccine also has the potential to help people around the world avoid a possible ‘epidemic’ – a simultaneous outbreak of influenza and coronavirus,” said Susan Taghioff, lead author of the study. “Regardless of the degree of protection the influenza vaccine offers against the adverse effects associated with COVID-19, just being able to conserve global health care resources by controlling the number of influenza cases is reason enough to argue continued efforts to promote influenza vaccination. worldwide. “

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