The Shingrix vaccine, shingles vaccine appears to give benefit and help to reduce the risk of COVID-19 in older adults.
An interesting preprint published in medRxiv by Bruxvoort and others suggests that vaccines may elicit long term boosting of innate immune responses that can help protect against COVID-19.
They evaluated the association between the recombinant adjuvanted zoster vaccine and COVID-19 outcomes at the Kaiser Permanente Centre in Southern California.
They found that those patients who had been vaccinated with the Shingrix were associated with a 16% lower risk of COVID-19 infection and a 32% reduced risk of COVID-19 hospitalisations.
The study size was 447,732 individuals greater than 50 years of age in California.
The author’s proposed that the AS01 adjuvant used in Shingrix, which activated the innate immune responses including monocytes and IFM response pathways may provide trained immunity against other respiratory infections including SARS-CoV-2.
This study supports the uptake of Shingrix.
The London General Practice, the leading London doctors’ clinic in Harley Street provides a full vaccination service apart from COVID-19 vaccine, which is only able to be administered by the National Health Service.
However, it does have supplies of Shingrix and recommends all those eligible to be vaccinated.
Dr Paul Ettlinger
BM, DRCOG, FRCGP, FRIPH, DOccMed