Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 26, 2025
A Luciferase-fluorescent Reporter Influenza Virus for Live Imaging and Quantification of Viral Infection
Published on: August 14, 2019
Inactivated trivalent influenza vaccination is associated with lower mortality among patients with COVID-19 in Brazil
Günther Fink1,2, Nina Orlova-Fink3,2, Tobias Schindler3,2
1University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland guenther.fink@swisstph.ch.
Objective:
To estimate associations between trivalent influenza vaccination and COVID-19 mortality as well as severe clinical outcomes among hospitalised patients.
Design:
Retrospective observational study.
Setting:
This study was conducted among hospitalised patients with COVID-19 in Brazil.
Participants:
We analysed all hospitalised patients with COVID-19 with available vaccination information captured in Brazil's national electronic respiratory infection data system between 1 January 2020 and 23 June 2020.
Main Outcome Measures:
The primary outcomes were age-specific mortality rates of hospitalised patients with COVID-19 with and without recent inactivated trivalent influenza vaccination.
Results:
A total of 53 752 clinically confirmed COVID-19 cases were analysed. Controlling for health facility of treatment, comorbidities as well as an extensive range of sociodemographic factors, patients who received a recent influenza vaccine experienced on average 7% lower odds of needing intensive care treatment (95% CI 0.87 to 0.98), 17% lower odds of requiring invasive respiratory support (95% CI 0.77 to 0.88) and 16% lower odds of death (95% CI 0.78 to 0.90). Protective effects were larger when the vaccine was administered after onset of symptoms as well as among younger patients.
Conclusion:
Patients with COVID-19 with recent inactivated influenza vaccination experience significantly better health outcomes than non-vaccinated patients in Brazil. Beneficial off-target effects of influenza vaccination through trained innate immune responses seem plausible and need to be further explored. Large-scale promotion of influenza vaccines seems advisable, especially in populations at high risk for severe COVID-19 disease progression.
