{"doi":"10.1002/jmv.29343","title":"Vaccination against influenza viruses reduces infection, not hospitalization or death, from respiratory COVID‐19: A systematic review and meta‐analysis","abstract":"Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes COVID-19 and has brought a huge burden in terms of human lives. Strict social distance and influenza vaccination have been recommended to avoid co-infections between influenza viruses and SARS-CoV-2. Scattered reports suggested a protective effect of influenza vaccine on COVID-19 development and severity. We analyzed 51 studies on the capacity of influenza vaccination to affect infection with SARS-CoV-2, hospitalization, admission to Intensive Care Units (ICU), and mortality. All subjects taken into consideration did not receive any anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, although their status with respect to previous infections with SARS-CoV-2 is not known. Comparison between vaccinated and not-vaccinated subjects for each of the four endpoints was expressed as odds ratio (OR), with 95% confidence intervals (CIs); all analyses were performed by DerSimonian and Laird model, and Hartung-Knapp model when studies were less than 10. In a total of 61 029 936 subjects from 33 studies, influenza vaccination reduced frequency of SARS-CoV-2 infection [OR plus 95% CI = 0.70 (0.65-0.77)]. The effect was significant in all studies together, in health care workers and in the general population; distance from influenza vaccination and the type of vaccine were also of importance. In 98 174 subjects from 11 studies, frequency of ICU admission was reduced with influenza vaccination [OR (95% CI) = 0.71 (0.54-0.94)]; the effect was significant in all studies together, in pregnant women and in hospitalized subjects. In contrast, in 4 737 328 subjects from 14 studies hospitalization was not modified [OR (95% CI) = 1.05 (0.82-1.35)], and in 4 139 660 subjects from 19 studies, mortality was not modified [OR (95% CI) = 0.76 (0.26-2.20)]. Our study emphasizes the importance of influenza vaccination in the protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection.","journal":"Journal of Medical Virology","year":2024,"id":434551,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":12,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.954,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1241837,"name":"Francesco Scovenna","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1241350,"name":"Valentina Carlini","orcid":"0000-0001-7592-1566","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":620113,"name":"Elena Tagliabue","orcid":"0000-0002-8153-2599","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1241351,"name":"Jimmy Martín-Delgado","orcid":"0000-0003-4384-9197","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1241352,"name":"Lucia La Sala","orcid":"0000-0002-7580-1377","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":891526,"name":"Elisabetta Tanzi","orcid":"0000-0002-4119-701X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":245464,"name":"Ivan Zanoni","orcid":"0000-0002-3423-7474","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":620114,"name":"Antonio E. Pontiroli","orcid":"0000-0002-8217-7672","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":122,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:59:58.582186Z","pmid":"38163281","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}