Covid and Flu Shots Together

It would seem that Covid vaccines are not enough! There is now a call for flu shots too! 

Researchers have come out to warn that individuals who had contracted both Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, and influenza viruses were more than four times more likely to require ventilation support and 2.4 times more likely to die than if they just had Covid-19. 

The call was made after the publication of a paper in the medical journal the Lancet. The study looked at more than 305,000 hospitalised patients with Covid-19 and involved researchers from Edinburgh University, Liverpool University, and Imperial College London, all from the UK and Leiden University in the Netherlands. 

A total of 6,965 patients were found to have had Covid-19, while 227 also had the influenza virus. These individuals experienced significantly more severe outcomes, researchers found. 

Professor Calum Semple (left) of Liverpool University maintains: “It is now very important that people get fully vaccinated and boosted against both viruses, and not leave it until it is too late”. 

This point was stressed by Professor Peter Openshaw of Imperial College London. “The vaccines that protect against Covid-19 and flu are different, and people need both. The way that these two infections are treated is also different so it’s important to test for other viruses even when you have a diagnosis in someone who is hospitalised with a respiratory infection”.