Study finds flu shot reduces risk of being hospitalized with Covid by up to 60%

Getting a flu shot lowers your risk of becoming seriously ill with Covid, research shows.

An analysis of nearly 75,000 coronavirus patients found that those who received an annual flu shot were 60% less likely to end up in A&E compared to people not vaccinated against the flu.

People vaccinated against the flu between two weeks and six months before catching Covid also appear to be protected against the nasty complications of the virus.

Those who had not received the vaccine were up to 60% less likely to suffer from stroke, sepsis or blood clots compared to vaccinated patients.

The study’s authors say their findings suggest that the flu vaccine may offer increased protection to people in countries where supplies of Covid vaccines are limited.

However, the analysis – which included data on patients from the United States and the United Kingdom – did not find that having a flu shot reduced patients’ chances of dying from Covid.

Researchers, at the University of Miami, said it was not clear why having a flu vaccine offers some protection against Covid.

But they pointed to previous research that has shown that vaccines can boost the body’s innate immune system, improving its overall defenses against disease.

The study comes as the UK government plans to offer Covid vaccine boosters alongside a winter flu vaccination program starting in September and making flu vaccination a condition of deployment for NHS staff .

No10 has already made Covid jabs mandatory in nursing homes to protect elderly and frail residents who are most at risk of becoming seriously ill with the virus.

Miami researchers analyzed the medical records of 74,754 Covid patients, dividing them into two groups of 37,377.

These groups have been closely mirrored to each other to take into account factors that could affect their risk for severe symptoms of Covid, such as age, gender, ethnicity, smoking status.

They also looked at health issues like diabetes, obesity, and lung conditions that cause breathing difficulties to make sure they weren’t influencing the study’s results.

Fifteen adverse events, such as sepsis, stroke, deep vein thrombosis, were identified in the group tested positive for Covid.

They found that Covid patients who had been bitten for the flu were 58% less likely to have a stroke, 45% less likely to get sepsis, and 40% less likely to be diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis .

Unvaccinated patients were also 58% more likely to be referred to an emergency department for treatment and 20% more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit.

It is not known if any of the participants had also been vaccinated against Covid, which would have significantly improved their results.

While saying more research needs to be done, a professor of plastic surgery at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami and lead author of the study, Devinder Singh said the findings suggest that flu shots are easier to take. getting could offer countries struggling to get Covid vaccines some form of protection.

“Only a small fraction of the world has been fully vaccinated against Covid to date and, with all the devastation caused by the pandemic, the global community has yet to find solutions to reduce morbidity and mortality,” he said. .

Susan Taghioff, another study author, added that while influenza vaccines may offer some protection against Covid, they do not replace the protection offered by a real Covid vaccine.

“The flu vaccine is in no way a substitute for the Covid vaccine and we advocate that everyone receive their Covid vaccine if possible,” she said.

The UK government is considering plans for a booster program that could allow millions of vulnerable people and essential workers to come up with a third COVID-19 vaccine before this winter,

Scientists at the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI), which advises the government on vaccine policy, have released interim guidance on what a potential Covid booster program might look like.

The proposal has been criticized by some scientists who have urged the UK government to instead start shipping Covid vaccines to poorer countries rather than deploying a third home jab.

One of them is Sir Andrew Pollard, who was one of the University of Oxford’s top jab researchers, urged No.10 to put plans on hold and focus on helping others instead nations to vaccinate their populations.

So far, less than 1% of global vaccine supplies have gone to the poorest countries and Sir Pollard argued that there was not yet enough evidence to show that a Covid booster program is needed .

The JCVI advisory warns that the winter of 2021 to 2022 will be the first that Covid and influenza will circulate together, which could add to the winter pressures already encountered each year by the NHS.

In the UK, free flu shots are offered to vulnerable clinics such as those with respiratory problems or diabetes, those aged 65 and over, and NHS workers and caregivers who could transmit the virus vulnerable people.

Last year, the government also offered free flu shots to all adults over 50 as part of efforts to reduce pressure on the NHS during the Covid pandemic.

However, government data shows that less than half of patients aged 50 to 65 in England have accepted the offer of a vaccine, with just 45.2 percent receiving the flu shot.

This compares to an 80.9% vaccination rate for people over the age of 65.

Several studies throughout the pandemic have shown that having natural immunity to the flu offers cross-protection against Covid.

Two studies, one Italian and the other Brazilian, which alone examined more than 100,000 patients, found that routine flu vaccination reduced Covid-19 hospitalizations and the need for intensive care in patients. infected people.

The researchers behind the findings, respectively at the University of Milan in Italy and at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, said the evidence was so convincing that all governments should continue influenza vaccination campaigns. as one of the best ways to protect populations from Covid.

The Italian study showed that in regions where less than 30% of eligible patients were immune to influenza, the death rate from Covid was around 150 per 100,000 population.

But in areas where absorption reached 70 percent, deaths totaled no more than ten per 100,000 population.

The Brazilian study followed more than 90,000 Covid patients and found death rates were up to 35% lower in those who received a flu shot compared to those who were not vaccinated.