Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://www.sciencealert.com/childr...ccal-shots-seem-to-have-milder-covid-19-cases
Flu Vaccine Appears to Reduce The Risk of Severe COVID-19 Symptoms in Kids
JACINTA BOWLER
9 FEBRUARY 2021
No virus is an island. Once a virus establishes itself within a cell, other viruses that manage to make their way into that already infected cell may find themselves unable to respond in their usual way – either for better or for worse.
A new study suggests that SARS-CoV-2 might have less of a foothold in some populations after other completely unrelated vaccines, such as the flu or pneumococcal shots.
"It is known that the growth of one virus can be inhibited by a previous viral infection," says University of Missouri paediatric rheumatologist Anjali Patwardhan.
"This phenomenon is called virus interference, and it can occur even when the first virus invader is an inactivated virus, such as the case with the flu vaccine."
Early in the pandemic, there was worry that the combination of COVID-19 and influenza could become a 'twindemic' during winter – a bad flu season with COVID-19 on top could have led to even more deaths than one or the other.
Luckily this hasn't come to pass – but there's still questions to be answered about how other viruses (and other vaccines) affect SARS-CoV-2.
To find out, a team of paediatrics researchers looked at every COVID-19 positive case they could find at Arkansas Children's Hospital System between February 1 to August 30, 2020 – in total finding 905 patients 20 years old or younger.
They then analyzed how sick the patients became, as well as their vaccination status for both the flu and pneumococcal disease.
The results were exciting – those children that had received the influenza vaccine that season had lower odds of having severe cases of COVID-19 than those children that were unvaccinated.
A similar result could be seen for those who have been fully vaccinated against pneumococcal disease. Those with the pneumococcal vaccine also showed lower odds of having respiratory symptoms...
Flu Vaccine Appears to Reduce The Risk of Severe COVID-19 Symptoms in Kids
JACINTA BOWLER
9 FEBRUARY 2021
No virus is an island. Once a virus establishes itself within a cell, other viruses that manage to make their way into that already infected cell may find themselves unable to respond in their usual way – either for better or for worse.
A new study suggests that SARS-CoV-2 might have less of a foothold in some populations after other completely unrelated vaccines, such as the flu or pneumococcal shots.
"It is known that the growth of one virus can be inhibited by a previous viral infection," says University of Missouri paediatric rheumatologist Anjali Patwardhan.
"This phenomenon is called virus interference, and it can occur even when the first virus invader is an inactivated virus, such as the case with the flu vaccine."
Early in the pandemic, there was worry that the combination of COVID-19 and influenza could become a 'twindemic' during winter – a bad flu season with COVID-19 on top could have led to even more deaths than one or the other.
Luckily this hasn't come to pass – but there's still questions to be answered about how other viruses (and other vaccines) affect SARS-CoV-2.
To find out, a team of paediatrics researchers looked at every COVID-19 positive case they could find at Arkansas Children's Hospital System between February 1 to August 30, 2020 – in total finding 905 patients 20 years old or younger.
They then analyzed how sick the patients became, as well as their vaccination status for both the flu and pneumococcal disease.
The results were exciting – those children that had received the influenza vaccine that season had lower odds of having severe cases of COVID-19 than those children that were unvaccinated.
A similar result could be seen for those who have been fully vaccinated against pneumococcal disease. Those with the pneumococcal vaccine also showed lower odds of having respiratory symptoms...