News & numbers “The longer vaccine inequity persists, the more the virus will keep circulating and


changing, the longer the social and economic disruption will continue.” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO


A double shot: protecting against flu and Covid-19


Healthcare experts are urging people to get vaccinated against both influenza and Covid-19. This is to offset some of the risk that could come with both viruses becoming prevalent at the same time during the autumn and winter months – a situation some are calling a ‘twindemic’. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cases of the flu were unusually low during the 2020–21 season. Between 28 September 2020 and 22 May 2021, only 0.2% of the 818,939 samples tested in US laboratories were positive for the virus. But experts believe cases are likely to return to normal levels this flu season with the lifting of


restrictions such as mask wearing and social distancing, which help limit the spread of numerous respiratory viruses. Speaking to Healthline, Karen L Edwards, professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, Irvine, said: “Because many of us were wearing masks, practicing good hand hygiene, and social distancing, the flu season was mild last year.” When it comes to the safety of receiving both vaccinations, the preliminary results of a recent clinical trial conducted in the UK suggest there are no serious ill effects. Researchers


Unvaccinated pregnant women at risk of hospitalisation with Covid


Unvaccinated pregnant women are increasingly being hospitalised with Covid- 19, according to research from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern). The study included more than 1,500 cases of the virus recorded in pregnant women by Parkland Health & Hospital System – Dallas County’s public hospital – from May 2020 through to 4 September 2021.


The researchers found an increase of between 10% and 15% in the number that needed to be hospitalised, a figure they indicated was more than double the percentage recorded in the same period in 2020, before the emergence of the Delta variant. Of the 82 patients hospitalised since May 2020, ten required ventilation, two died and all but one were unvaccinated. Emily Adhikari, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at UT Southwestern, and a lead author on the study, said the findings reflected a “concerning trend” in pregnant women refusing the vaccine. She acknowledged that some fear the vaccine is unsafe to receive while pregnant, but said research carried out


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to investigate that risk has debunked the false narratives fuelling that concern. With the UT Southwestern study providing objective evidence that the case number and severity of illness in pregnant women rose with a spike in the Delta variant, Adhikai, who serves as medical director of perinatal infectious diseases at Parkland, urged pregnant women to get vaccinated as a priority.


“If they are


exposed and infected, they run a higher risk of severe illness from this most recent Delta variant,” she said. “Pregnant women should get immunised as soon as possible.” Recent data from the UK’s Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre (ICNARC) reveals the same trend of pregnant women being hospitalised with the Delta variant. The organisation found that in August there were 127 Covid-19 patients admitted to ICUs who were currently or had recently been pregnant. This is higher than the 117 admitted during the Covid-19 peak in January, after which there was a gradual decrease until May, when admissions started to rise again with the spread of the Delta variant.


from the ComFluCOV (Combining Influenza and Covid-19 Vaccination) study took blood tests from participants and found no negative effects on the immune response to vaccines for either virus when they were given one after the other, in opposite arms. The authors of the study did note that certain combinations of the vaccines led to more side effects than others, including pain at the injection site and temporary fatigue, headache or muscle pain. They identified FluBlok by Sanofi as more potent when given alongside the Pfizer BioNTech jab, but in all cases side effects were only mild to moderate.


New biomarker for


atherosclerosis High levels of a specific protein circulating in the blood may be a reliable biomarker for a severe type of peripheral artery disease that narrows the arteries in the legs.


Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis found in a new study that circulating fatty acid synthase (cFAS) – an enzyme that manufactures saturated fatty acids – in the bloodstream may play an important role in the plaque formation characteristic of cardiovascular disease. They collected blood samples from 87 patients before they underwent vascular surgery to treat chronic limb-threatening ischaemia and found that cFAS levels in the blood were independently associated with the disease.


“These patients are at risk of losing their legs, which is devastating to quality of life,” said senior author Mohamed A Zayed, an associate professor of surgery and radiology and vascular surgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. “They lose their capacity to walk and about half of them die within the next two years. We need to identify these patients sooner, so we can help treat them aggressively much earlier in the disease course. Our data suggest that levels of cFAS in the blood could be an accurate predictor for which patients are at high risk of the severe forms of this condition.”


Practical Patient Care / www.practical-patient-care.com


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