Possible cross protection between influenza and COVID-19: evidence from a pilot review of national surveillance data
Influenza disappeared worldwide during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this was widely believed to be due to social distancing, mask use and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, other respiratory viruses were not similarly suppressed. Recently, intriguing data from trials o...
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213716524003369 |
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| Summary: | Influenza disappeared worldwide during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this was widely believed to be due to social distancing, mask use and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, other respiratory viruses were not similarly suppressed. Recently, intriguing data from trials of combined influenza and COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have suggested a synergistic effect in terms of immune protection. We investigated possible viral interference between COVID-19 and influenza infections based on publicly available surveillance data.We analysed monthly reported cases of influenza and COVID-19 from the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) sentinel surveillance and notification systems from March to June 2024. The data were plotted on graphs in EXCEL. The study was granted a “review not required” approval by the National University of Singapore Institutional Review Board (NUS-IRB-2024-568).There were an average of 200.25 ± 50.31 cases of Influenza A, H3N2, H1N1 2009 and Influenza B and 225.25 ± 174.93 cases of COVID-19 infection each month detected by the MOH surveillance systems.Our observation that reported influenza infection rates, especially influenza B, appeared to move in the opposite direction to COVID-19 is interesting and raises the possibility that infection and/or potentially even vaccination against one pathogen may provide some cross protection against the other. This would require large epidemiological as well as mechanistic studies to evaluate if this is real. If it is, it would have significant public health implications. |
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| ISSN: | 2213-7165 |