CNN
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As the holiday season begins, you may find yourself sitting across the table from an elderly relative, realizing you forgot your COVID-19 and flu shots.
The good news is it’s never too late to get the shot, but what about taking both down at the same time? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: this is optionalbut should you?
A recent study of Medicare claims data found that older adults who received high-dose influenza vaccines and Covid-19 shots at the same time had a small increased risk of stroke, but it was still very rare. It turned out to be. The risk is about 3 strokes for every 100,000 doses of Pfizer’s bivalent COVID-19 vaccine and about 3 transient ischemic attacks for every 100,000 doses of Moderna’s bivalent COVID-19 vaccine. Ta. Other studies have not found similar risks, and the CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration have announced no changes to their vaccine recommendations at this time. COVID-19 vaccines were updated this year to target one strain of coronavirus instead of two.
Additionally, if you take both shots at the same time, You are slightly more likely to have a temporary reaction to the shot. The most common symptoms reported in government research I had fatigue, headaches, and muscle pain.
CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen told CNN that the most important thing is for people to get vaccinated anyway, and that early in the respiratory virus outbreak is a good time to get vaccinated.
“It’s definitely OK to get multiple vaccines on the same day,” Cohen said. “We will talk to your doctor or nurse about what is right for you.”
But what about effectiveness? Does taking both shots together affect the effect?
There may be an advantage here.
A small study presented at the recent Vaccines 2023 conference in Boston found that healthcare workers who received influenza and bivalent COVID-19 vaccinations on the same day were more likely than the general population to It was found that the antibody response was high not only immediately after vaccination but also 6 months later. Those who received the injections on different days.
Susannah Barousch, a high school student in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led the study, said she believes the immune system may respond more strongly to the shots when vaccinated at the same time. “The influenza vaccine could have been an adjuvant to the COVID-19 vaccine,” she says.
However, this is not the only study to have looked at this issue and, perplexingly, other studies have reached opposite conclusions, or whether the vaccines should be given together or one at a time. It turns out that there is no essential difference.
This is one of the first studies to find that co-administration increases antibody levels, and Professor Barosh says the finding needs to be replicated before it can be accepted as fact.
“Certainly this problem is far from solved,” said University of Michigan researcher Stephen Moss.
Moss led the recent research The study compared neutralizing antibody responses in 53 Israeli healthcare workers who received a bivalent coronavirus vaccine, either separately or together with an influenza vaccine.
Blood samples from these health care workers were similarly able to prevent coronavirus and influenza viruses from infecting cells, regardless of whether they were given the vaccines together or separately.
In a study in the Netherlands, Published in Junefound that the neutralizing capacity of antibodies after co-administration was significantly lower compared to a reference group that received the vaccines separately.
Moss said most studies of the combination found that antibody levels were either “slightly increased, slightly decreased, or no change at all.”
What this means, he says, is that from a broader public health perspective, it’s probably a good idea to encourage people to take both at the same time.
“You’ll have fewer doctor visits. You’ll have fewer encounters with the health care system. You’ll also have fewer days to feel sick after getting the vaccine. So you’ll only experience it once instead of twice.” Just do it,” Moss said.
Encouragingly, a recent large-scale study by Pfizer researchers looked at the health effects of influenza and COVID-19 vaccines in people who received them together and separately, but there were no significant differences between these groups. Almost no difference was observed.
of research found Rates of hospitalization, emergency department visits, and physician visits were similar in both groups. Overall, the group who received both vaccines at the same time was slightly more likely to visit a doctor or emergency department for COVID-19, but less likely to require treatment for influenza. This suggests that administering both vaccines together improved immune protection against influenza infection. .
So how you get the vaccine is largely a matter of personal preference, but Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, says getting the vaccine all together is a good idea, especially if the season is just getting started. I say it makes a lot of sense.
“I would like to remind everyone that in most cases, vaccines that are postponed are vaccines that you have never received, because it requires a different effort to get vaccinated,” he said.
