Among vaccinated people, the risk of having a severe form of Covid-19 appears to be strongly associated with age, taking immunosuppressants or oral corticosteroids and the presence of certain comorbidities, confirms a large study on Friday.
The finding was known but this study, which focused on all people with a complete vaccination schedule (two doses or one dose and one infection) in France on July 31, i.e. 28 million people, delivers interesting figures.
Led by the Epi-Phare structure, which combines Health Insurance (Cnam) and the Medicines Agency (ANSM), it reveals that during this follow-up, 5,345 people were hospitalized and 996 died in hospital. for Covid-19.
In this population of vaccinated subjects, the risks of hospitalization and in-hospital death were associated with age. For example, compared to people aged 45-54, those aged 85-89 had a 4 times higher risk of being hospitalized and 38 times higher of dying. But also to the geographical location: people residing in the most disadvantaged municipalities had a risk of hospitalization 1.3 times higher.
In addition, only 10% of vaccinated patients hospitalized for Covid-19 and 2% of vaccinated patients who died in hospital had no comorbidity, i.e. half as much as in the total unvaccinated population of the first two waves. Of those vaccinated who were hospitalized, 12% had one comorbidity, 16% two comorbidities, 18% three comorbidities, 16% four comorbidities, and 27% five or more comorbidities.
In summary, “among vaccinated people, the residual risk of a severe form of Covid-19 appears to be strongly associated with age, the taking of immunosuppressants or oral corticosteroids or certain comorbidities”, notes Professor Mahmoud Zureik, the director of the Epi-Phare structure. “And this risk increases sharply with the number of comorbidities,” he adds.
What should we conclude from this? First of all, “these results confirm the very low risk of hospitalization in vaccinated persons”, underlines the epidemiologist. They “also suggest the importance of vaccination combined with additional preventive measures to further avoid the risk of severe forms of Covid-19 in vaccinated people, in particular the elderly and immunocompromised populations”, according to him.
