Many doctors are currently calling for a flu vaccination for everyone.
This suggestion has met with criticism, but a study shows that vaccination has an important protective effect.
A flu vaccination should protect against severe courses of the virus flu.
It is particularly recommended for high-risk groups such as the elderly over 60 or medical staff.
But against the background of the coronavirus pandemic, many medical professionals are advocating that all people should be vaccinated this year if possible * - among other things, in order to keep the number of hospital stays for flu as low as possible and thus relieve the health system.
In a recent study, researchers have come up with another argument in favor of the flu vaccination.
The virus flu can be severe and even cause death.
Vaccination is therefore particularly recommended for elderly people, medical staff in hospitals, nursing homes and facilities for the elderly and pregnant women, because it can immensely reduce the risk of a severe flu course.
But this year the flu vaccination will have another important task
: it is intended to
keep
the number of flu patients who have to be treated as inpatients as low as possible.
That is why many medical professionals are in favor of vaccinating all age groups.
A recently published study result also wants to prove that the flu vaccination in 2020 can have another positive effect.
It shows that people vaccinated against flu were less likely to contract Covid-19
.
Find out when you should get the flu vaccine
here.
Cross immunity through flu vaccination - protection against Covid-19?
Priya A. Debisarun from Radboud University in Nijmegen and researchers from Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf examined how high the risk of corona infection is in people who have been vaccinated against the flu compared to those who have not been vaccinated.
And
flu vaccination
actually had a positive effect:
Those who had the flu
vaccine
last winter had a lower risk of infection for coronaviruses than those who were not vaccinated during the first wave of the corona pandemic
, according to the researchers.
For their study, which they published on the medrxiv portal, the scientists analyzed the data of 10,600 employees at the Radboud University medical center.
184 were affected by Covid-19, with 2.23 percent of unvaccinated employees and 1.33 percent of employees infected with the flu vaccine.
This corresponds to a risk reduction of 39 percent
, as reported by the Pharmazeutische Zeitung.
In further studies it was shown that the flu vaccine creates a trained immunity, which not only takes effect in the case of an infection with influenza viruses (trigger of the virus flu), but also with other pathogens.
The immune cells trained by the flu vaccination reacted in the event of a coronavirus infection with a stronger cytokine response than untrained cells.
They released more IL-1RA, IL-6 and interferon-γ, according to the pharmaceutical newspaper.
Doctors speak of
cross-immunity
: the flu vaccine causes the body's defenses to fight not only flu viruses, but also coronaviruses more effectively.
However, further research must follow in order to substantiate the study results, according to the researchers.
(jg) * Merkur.de is part of the Germany-wide Ippen-Digital editorial network
.
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The life-saving prick: These risk groups should get a flu vaccination
The life-saving prick: These risk groups should get a flu vaccination