Dialysis Patients can be Protected from Severe COVID-19 by Vaccination

Patients with kidney failure receiving dialysis who had been vaccinated had a lower risk of experiencing severe COVID-19, according to a new study published in Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Various studies have shown that individuals on hemodialysis have impaired immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines, but few studies have described the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination in such patients.

How Beneficial is COVID-19 Vaccination for Dialysis Patients?

To investigate, researchers conducted a multi-center observational study of patients who were receiving hemodialysis in London and who were being regularly tested for COVID-19 during the period of vaccine roll-out with Pfizer-BioNtech’s BNT162b2 and AstraZeneca’s AZD1222.

COVID-19 infection was identified in 1,323 patients of different ethnicities (Asian/other 30%, Black 38%, and White 32%) including 1,047 (79%) unvaccinated, 86 (7%) post–first-dose, and 190 (14%) post–second-dose vaccination.

Most patients who tested positive had a mild course of COVID-19, but 515 (39%) were hospitalized and 172 (13%) died. Older age, diabetes, and immune suppression were associated with greater illness severity.

After adjustments, prior two-dose vaccination was associated with a 75% lower risk of hospital admission and an 88% lower risk of death compared with no vaccination.

No loss of protection against COVID-19 was seen in patients older than 65 years, or with increasing time since vaccination, and no difference was seen between vaccine types.

The study’s encouraging results prove the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines for patients on dialysis, but there is still much work to be done.

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While the COVID-19 pandemic is ever-changing, making vaccine studies challenging, it also provides new opportunities to examine vaccine effectiveness from many different angles.

Source-Medindia