It seems that there have been fewer cases of Flu in Australia this Winter, possibly because people have been socially distancing. I am on the waiting list for this years flu jab and am not going to get an offer until the Heath Care professionals and others have been offered their Jab. Are you an anti-Jaxer but want to avoid COVID-19. But maybe vaccination against Flu can reduce your risk f COVID-19…Maybe worth getting this years jab
Debisarun PA et al.The effect of influenza vaccination on trained immunity: impact on COVID-19. BioRXiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.14.20212498
Every year, influenza causes 290.000 to 650.000 deaths worldwide and vaccination is encouraged to prevent infection in high-risk individuals. Interestingly, cross-protective effects of vaccination against heterologous infections have been reported, and long-term boosting of innate immunity (also termed trained immunity) has been proposed as the underlying mechanism. Several epidemiological studies also suggested cross-protection between influenza vaccination and COVID-19 during the current pandemic. However, the mechanism behind such an effect is unknown. Using an established in-vitro model of trained immunity, we demonstrate that the quadrivalent inactivated influenza vaccine used in the Netherlands in the 2019-2020 influenza season can induce a trained immunity response, including an improvement of cytokine responses after stimulation of human immune cells with SARS-CoV-2. In addition, we found that SARS-CoV-2 infection was less common among Dutch hospital employees who had received influenza vaccination during the 2019/2020 winter season (RR = 0.61 (95% CI, 0.4585 – 0.8195, P = 0.001). In conclusion, a quadrivalent inactivated influenza vaccine can induce trained immunity responses against SARS-CoV-2, which may result in relative protection against COVID-19. These data, coupled with similar recent independent reports, argue for a beneficial effect of influenza vaccination against influenza as well as COVID-19, and suggests its effective deployment in the 2020-2021 influenza season to protect against both infections.
We were in lockdown or observing social distancing during most of winter.
We were in lockdown or observing social distancing for most of winter. Not sure about the vaccination rate for 2020.
I had the quadrivalent vaccine at work last week – they are aiming for a 100% vaccination rate amongst HCW in our hospital this year!
Am hoping I manage to mount some form of response to it (anti CD20) after reading this positive paper!
The flu vax rate for Australia was approx 50% higher than last year. https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-greg-hunt-mp/media/record-flu-vaccines-in-2020-to-protect-australians
Maybe this has contributed to the fact that we done pretty well against COVID-19, along with social distancing, shut/lockdowns and hand sanitizing, oh and no travel in or out of Australia probably had something to do with it… just no flu around
This is a hopeful post – thank you.
Perhaps the London MDT for AHSCT for MS will share some of your thinking and those approved for the treatment may see their treatment plans being progressed.
It seems that there might be another side to this important story. This paper suggests the opposite.
https://peerj.com/articles/10112/
They find an unexpected positive correlation between Flu immunisation and COVID19 deaths. What do you think?
I will let others comment on this one. The authors background is interesting
I’ll take the ball. I’m admitedly a science layperson and can’t speak to the author’s background but I can see that the math and statistical modeling used to support the hypothesis that the flu vaccine increases covid deaths makes large categorizations and appears to be much less than certain. I dont think the article even addresses the type of flu vaccine used in different countries (trivalent vs. Quadrivanent ) or whether the country administered an adjuvant or greater flu virus antigen to seniors. In contrast, the Dutch study uses a control group with verifiable data set. The Dutch study authors concede it is 2 relatively small study groups but point to 2 unpublished studies with similar findings in older adults. My take, I trust the findings of the Dutch article and agree with both articles that more research is needed to establish that a flu vaccine gives cross reactive protections against covid19.
Thanks, It’s amazing what the global number crunching is coming up with. Im waiting to get my flu jab and don’t think I’ll be cancelling it.
It’s been more than a decade since I did any real stats but the importance of longitude makes me suspect they are measuring something else (Vitamin D3 status?) that might screw with their model. Also, given what we know about mortality of age groups, the modeling of that parameter seems to be severely lacking.
Finally, if we look at figure 3, it is almost completely driven by the low vaccination countries on the left….