The Effect of Influenza Vaccination on COVID-19 Morbidity, Severity and Mortality: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is rapidly developing worldwide with a high mortality rate. In this meta-analysis study, the effect of influenza vaccination on the prevention of COVID-19 and its consequences in patients were investigated. The systematic search for this study was performed from November 2019 to 25 November 2020, in the databases of Medline, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, Ebsco, Cochrane and medRxiv. Search terms used included COVID-19, coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, covid, influenza, flu, grippe and vaccine. The present study examined the association between influenza vaccination and COVID-19 including COVID-19 infection, mortality, hospitalisation and intensive care unit (ICU) admission. Finally, the pooled estimates for different outcomes were calculated by the software for statistics and data science (STATA) version 15 and I2 was used to determine the heterogeneity. By analysing the data of articles, the pooled estimates of these data indicated that influenza vaccination could lower probability of COVID-19 infection up to 24% (OR = 0.77; 95% CI: 0.65, 0.91), of death up to 32% (OR = 0.68; 95% CI: 0.42, 1.11), of the hospitalisation up to 25% (OR = 0.75; 95% CI: 0.46; 1.23) and of admission to ICU up to 29% (OR = 0.71; 95% CI: 0.40, 1.27). Influenza vaccination can help decrease the COVID-19 infection and reduce hospitalisation and the need for ICU and mortality rates.