Vaccination is effective in mitigating both the adverse effects of coronavirus, as well as the complications of the disease and its mortality. This has been confirmed by a research work developed by the MIRs of Intensive Medicine of the Zamora Healthcare Complex, signed by Ricardo Jerez Sánchez, Carolina Sanmartino González, Miguel Berenguer Rodríguez, Candela Serra Sánchez and Antonia Márquez García and published in the June issue of Revista Nuevo Hospital published by the Zamora Healthcare Complex, with the title of “Vaccinated population versus unvaccinated population: Was the vaccine really effective against SARS-COV 2 during the pandemic?”
The purpose of the study, according to its authors, is to evaluate the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine “by comparing the vaccinated population with the unvaccinated population in terms of the average length of stay in the intensive care unit, as well as the mortality rate inside and outside the ICU, and the incidence of disease-related complications.”
The aim is therefore to provide a study of how vaccination can influence these key aspects of the management and prognosis of coronavirus infection.
To carry out the research, the doctors from Zamora conducted a retrospective study on 146 patients to investigate the differences between the 76 patients vaccinated against COVID and those 70 users studied who were not vaccinated, during the third, fourth and fifth waves of the pandemic, that is, from January to December 2021.
Among the variables studied by the researchers are the average length of stay in the intensive care unit, mortality both inside and outside the ICU, as well as the complications related to the disease such as ventilator-associated pneumonia, pneumothorax, septic shock, reintubation, hemorrhage, and urinary tract infections.
SARS-CoV-2 infection, explain the intensive care specialists at the Zamora hospital, “has emerged as one of the most serious and deadly respiratory diseases today.”
“Our study has revealed the presence of numerous complications of this disease that could contribute to an increase in the average length of hospital stay and in the mortality rates both inside and outside the ICU“, they indicate in the published work.
However, they point out in the conclusions chapter, it has been observed that vaccination against coronavirus “can mitigate these adverse effects. This finding suggests that the variables studied, including the length of stay in the ICU, intra-ICU and extra-ICU mortality, as well as the incidence of complications, are less frequent in the vaccinated population compared to those who have not been vaccinated.”
ICU of Virgen de la Concha. / Emilio Fraile
Los results Zamora’s research work “supports the effectiveness and importance of vaccination programs against SARS-CoV-2, highlighting their role in reducing hospital burden and improving clinical outcomes in affected individuals.”
Therefore, they state, “it can be said that vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 infection was effective during the different waves of the pandemic.”
The paper also explains in detail how the results demonstrating the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine were obtained.
“In the framework of this study, the demographic composition of the analyzed population, 146 patients, was investigated, revealing that 40% of the patients were women, while 60% were men. This population was subsequently segmented into Subgroups of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. Within these subgroups, 31% of men were found to be vaccinated, compared to 29% who were not, while 23% of women received the vaccine, compared to 17% who did not,” the study notes.
In addition, significant differences were observed in the average age between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, with an average of 63.27 years in the former and an average of 55.8 years in the latter. Regarding the average stay in the intensive care unit of the Zamora Health Complex, it was found that it was 6.81 days for those vaccinated and 15.61 days for those who were not immunized.
Ventilator-associated pneumonia was the most frequent complication in both groups of coronavirus patients, as it was present in 36% of the sample, although with a notable difference in the distribution between vaccinated (6%) and unvaccinated (30%). Other complications detected among the patients analyzed included pneumothorax (8%), hemorrhage (8%), urinary tract infection (8%), septic shock (4%) and reintubation (4%), “the latter being more frequent in unvaccinated patients,” the research paper notes.
ICU of Virgen de la Concha. / Emilio Fraile
Finally, mortality rates of 4% were observed both in and out of the ICU for the vaccinated population, compared with rates of 32% for the unvaccinated population. These findings provide a more detailed understanding of the differences and relative impacts of vaccination in this sample of patients.
The results of Zamora’s study confirm what has been found by other similar studies. The fact that the coronavirus vaccine was developed and approved in record time, and with a technique that was also quite novel based on messenger RNA This has meant that doubts about its efficacy have always been greater than those of other types of vaccines. The two key aspects of a vaccine are: efficacy (results in reducing events under experimental conditions arising from clinical trials) and effectiveness; that is, how the vaccines behave in groups.
Quality of life suffers after overcoming the disease, the report concludes
This is not the first time that professionals from the Zamora Healthcare Complex have studied the effects of COVID on patients. The work “Impact on health-related quality of life after admission for COVID 19” was carried out by nurses Fernando Barroso (Pulmonology consultations), Begoña Álvarez Prieto (Internal Medicine consultations), Yolanda Martín (Training, Information Systems and Nursing Care supervisor) and María Lorena Folgado (Pulmonology supervisor, in addition to Rodolfo Romero and Israel John Thuissard, doctors in Biomedical and Health Sciences from the European University of Madrid. “Patients who have suffered from Covid and continue to be medically monitored perceive a decrease in quality of life, being more relevant in those who have required admission to the ICU, leading to alterations that can compromise the patient’s autonomy.“This is the conclusion of this study to describe and analyze the impact that admission for Covid has had on the perception of a concept called health-related quality of life according to clinical management (conventional hospitalization, ICU).
After observing the results, “we could define the post-COVID patient who participated in the study, from the point of view of quality of life, as a person with moderate problems walking, carrying out daily activities, who reports moderate pain or discomfort and who is mildly anxious or depressed,” the authors noted.
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