The risk of severe and death is much higher if you get COVID-19 and seasonal flu at the same time, a study has found.
The University of Edinburgh University of Edinburgh’s research team, led by Dr Kenneth Bailey, studied 227 patients with both COVID-19 and the flu.
According to the results of the study, the probability of co-infected patients complaining of severe illness requiring ventilator treatment was 4.14 times higher than those with only COVID-19, and the probability of dying in a hospital was 2.35 times higher.
This study was conducted to determine the risk of co-infection during the ‘twindemic’, in which COVID-19 and flu co-infected. As a result of studying 6965 COVID-19 patients, 227 of them were classified as co-infected with the flu, the researchers said. .
In the process, 220 patients were also found concentrically infected with COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which is the main cause of infection in the lower respiratory tract, although they complained of COVID-19 and cold-like diseases. was 136. However, the risk of co-infection with these viruses and COVID-19 was not as high as co-infection with the flu.
“The combination of two viruses, COVID-19 and influenza, is particularly dangerous,” Bailey said. “We need to change the strategy of testing patients with COVID-19 in hospitals, making flu testing much more extensive,” he said.
The results of this study were published in the prestigious medical journal ‘The Lancet’ on the 25th.
Meanwhile, Dr. Peter Offenshaw of Imperial University of Science and Technology (College London), who participated in this study, said, “The vaccine to prevent COVID-19 and the flu is different,” Reuters reported.
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A ‘two-in-one vaccine’ that prevents the flu and COVID-19 at once is currently being developed by US pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Novavax.
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