|
 Heart attack, stroke risks rise in COVID-19 patients
COVID-19 increases patients' risks for heart attack and stroke,
suggests a study from Sweden that compared 86,742 individuals
infected with SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 and 348,481 people without the
virus. In the week following a COVID-19 diagnosis, the risk of a
first heart attack went up three- to eight-fold, and the risk of a
first stroke due to a blood-vessel blockage rose three- to six-fold,
the researchers found. The risks then dropped steadily but remained
elevated for at least four weeks, according to the report in The
Lancet https://bit.ly/3yCe9Za. The researchers did not include
COVID-19 patients who had had heart attacks or strokes in the past,
but for them, the risk of another heart attack or stroke is probably
even higher, said coauthor Dr. Anne-Marie Fors Connolly of Umea
University.
Flu vaccination linked with less severe COVID-19
Flu vaccination may lower the risk for severe illness from the
coronavirus, including life-threatening sepsis infections and
strokes, according to a report in PLoS One https://bit.ly/37nhLm7 on
Tuesday. The researchers studied nearly 75,000 COVID-19 patients,
half of whom had received the most recently available flu shot. They
also found fewer patients who had flu shots had to be admitted to
intensive care units or visited emergency departments, and fewer had
dangerous blood clots in their legs, compared to patients who did
not get flu shots. Studies like this one, however, cannot prove that
flu vaccines caused the better outcomes, or how they might have done
so. Stronger and larger studies would help "to validate these
findings and determine if an increased emphasis on influenza
vaccination will improve adverse outcomes in SARS-CoV-2-positive
patients," the authors wrote.
[to top of second column] |
 Breakthrough infections may
boost immune defenses
Breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infections in fully
vaccinated people seem to strengthen their
immune defenses, suggests a new study posted on
medRxiv https://bit.ly/3jtLXBE ahead of peer
review. One month after a COVID-19 outbreak in a
German nursing home, doctors collected blood
samples from the 23 elderly residents and four
staff members who had tested positive. They
found that vaccinated residents who still got
the virus had significantly higher levels of
antibodies afterward than vaccinated residents
who did not get infected, and they also had more
antibodies that were capable of neutralizing
variants of the virus. Coauthor Jorg Timm of
Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf said the
findings suggest there might come a time - after
most people have developed some level of
immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus - when natural
infection will have some benefit, but only when
it does not lead to severe symptoms or disease.
Click for a Reuters graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl
on vaccines in development.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Linda Carroll;
Editing by Tiffany Wu)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content
 |
