(HealthDay News) — The immune response and occurrence of adverse events were similar for healthcare workers receiving coadministration of COVID-19 and influenza vaccines or COVID-19 vaccine alone, according to a study published online Sept. 8 in JAMA Network Open.
Tal Gonen, MD, from Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, and colleagues compared the reactogenicity and immunogenicity of COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations administered together to those of COVID-19 vaccination alone in a prospective cohort study involving participants who received the Influvac Tetra (Abbott) influenza vaccine (2022/2023), the omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent (Pfizer/BioNTech) vaccine or both. Two cohorts were included for two analyses: The reactogenicity analysis included 588 participants (85 in the COVID-19 vaccine-alone group; 357 in the influenza vaccine-alone group; and 146 in the coadministration group), and the immunogenicity analysis included 151 participants (74 in the COVID-19 vaccine group and 77 in the coadministration group).
The researchers found that the risk for systemic symptoms was similar in the coadministration group compared with the COVID-19 vaccination-alone group (odds ratio, 0.82; 95% confidence interval, 0.43 to 1.56). In the coadministration group, geometric mean titers were estimated to be 0.84 (95% confidence interval, 0.69 to 1.04) times lower than in the COVID-19 vaccine-alone group.
“We believe that our results suggest that the coadministration of this COVID-19 vaccine along with seasonal influenza vaccination is a feasible and harmless tactic to increase vaccine uptake,” the authors write.
Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
