The potential benefits of the influenza vaccination on COVID-19 mortality rate—A retrospective analysis of patients in Poland

Abstract

In this study, we used publicly available data from the Centrum e-Zdrowia (CeZ) Polish Databank proposing a possible correlation between influenza vaccination and mortality due to COVID-19. We limited our search to the patients with positive COVID-19 laboratory tests from 1 January 2020 to 31 March 2021 and who filled a prescription for any influenza vaccine during the 2019–2020 influenza season. In total, we included 116,277 patients and used a generalized linear model to analyze the data. We found out that patients aged 60+ who received an influenza vaccination have a lower probability of death caused by COVID-19 in comparison to unvaccinated, and the magnitude of this difference grows with age. For people below 60 years old, we did not observe an influence of the vaccination. Our results suggest a potential protective effect of the influenza vaccine on COVID-19 mortality of the elderly. Administration of the influenza vaccine before the influenza season would reduce the burden of increased influenza incidence, the risk of influenza and COVID-19 coinfection and render the essential medical resources accessible to cope with another wave of COVID-19. To our knowledge, this is the first study showing a correlation between influenza vaccination and the COVID-19 mortality rate in Poland.