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Vaccinated people who are infected with COVID-19 and contract a so-called breakthrough case that results in serious illness, according to a new study, are more likely to be older and have pre-existing health problems.
“Overall, older people with underlying heart or lung disease or a weakened immune system were the most prevalent among people with breakthrough cases with symptoms,” wrote Dr. Hyung Chun. from the Yale School of Medicine, which led the study, in an email.
Chun and his colleagues at Yale have identified 969 patients who were admitted to hospitals in the Yale New Haven health system and who tested positive for COVID over a 14-day period from March 23 to July 1, according to a comment posted. on the Lancet Infectious Disease website on September 7. All patients were required to be tested upon admission and may have come to the hospital for an illness other than COVID.
About 18% of patients who tested positive received at least one dose of the vaccine and a third of them were fully immunized, records show.
The team focused on these fully vaccinated people and found that a quarter of them (14 people) had serious or critical illness and required extra oxygen support. Four were in the intensive care unit, one on a mechanical ventilator and three died.
Patients with severe illness were between 65 and 95 years old and had a median age of 80.5 years, according to the researchers. They had pre-existing co-morbidities, including cardiovascular disease, lung disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Some patients were taking immunosuppressive drugs that could impact the effectiveness of the vaccine.
A large body of research shows that COVID-19 vaccines are effective and have helped curb the pandemic, but in rare cases, fully vaccinated people contract the virus and get what are called breakthrough cases. In even rarer cases, a breakthrough case leads to serious illness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has received reports of 14,115 patients with a breakthrough infection from the COVID-19 vaccine who were hospitalized or died. This is an extremely small percentage of the 178 million fully vaccinated people in the United States.
“Vaccines continue to remain very effective in preventing serious illness from COVID-19,” Chun wrote. “The likelihood of developing a serious infection with COVID-19 remains much lower for people who are vaccinated compared to those who are not vaccinated. Emerging data on breakthrough cases will need to be closely monitored to determine the most effective strategies for booster vaccines. “
The study was performed before the highly transmissible delta variant became the predominant COVID variant in the United States. Chun said more research is needed to determine the impact of the delta variant on breakthrough cases.
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