Research: Vaccination protects against late effects after covid-19

Researchers at the University of Oslo (UiO) have extracted data from Norwegian health registers in the period 2018 to 2021 for 2,364,651 vaccinated and 1,532,935 unvaccinated people. They were divided into four groups, based on age and whether they belonged to risk groups.

In all groups, it turns out that being vaccinated significantly reduces the risk of developing late effects of covid-19, and in total the risk is reduced by 36 per cent.

– We can confirm how important vaccination is also to prevent the late effects of covid-19. We also confirm our previous international findings, says Professor Hedvig Nordeng at the Institute of Pharmacy to NTB.

Nordeng led the work on the analysis, which was recently completed published in the medical the journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

The research is part of a massive international collaboration to map the effect of corona vaccines. The Norwegian findings support and confirm similar surveys with data from over 20 million people from Great Britain, Spain and Estonia, according to the Nuffield Professors of Orthopedic Surgery (NDORMS) at the University of Oxford.

Significant difference

Among those vaccinated who tested positive for covid, 1,576 people had late sequelae three to twelve months after the disease. The number of late sequelae was twice as high among unvaccinated people: 2,922 people.

The Norwegian research also shows that there was a significantly lower risk of acute heart or lung complications after covid disease if you were vaccinated beforehand.

The findings applied regardless of which corona vaccine had been taken. Vaccinated persons therefore not only have a lower risk of a serious course of covid-19 if they become infected, they also have a lower risk of further side effects of the disease.

In the current study, where the aim was to see the extent to which vaccination affects risk, everyone uses the same definition for late effects of covid. At least three months after the illness, the person must have at least one of the 25 symptoms that the World Health Organization (WHO) has linked to late effects – “long covid”. These must also be symptoms the person did not have before the illness.

Extremely exciting

The international collaboration to map the effect of corona vaccines is based on the countries using a common data standard: the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP).

– One of the things I have experienced as the most exciting in this work is that it shows how we can collaborate internationally. At UiO, we have now built a data analysis system and transformed Norwegian health data to the OMOP data standard. This means that we can verify findings from international research more quickly, says Nordeng.

– It is very important to understand the effectiveness of vaccines and medicines to prevent or reduce the severity of disease in the population. When studies are carried out, it is fundamental that the research is transparent and publicly available, so that we can verify findings. Then we have to use common analysis standards and coding, says the professor, who believes that such global research collaborations are the future.

The OMOP standard is now used by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in the DARWIN EU “Data Analysis and Real-World Interrogation Network”, where Professor Nordeng participates.

– It has almost been a paradigm shift in how we work. When it is really urgent for society to get answers to questions about the safety or effectiveness of medicines and vaccines, it shouldn’t take three years, it should take three months, she says.