Kaiser Permanente Researchers in Pasadena Find Pneumonia Vaccine May Help Improve COVID-19 Outcomes for Seniors

A new study published this week by a team of researchers led by the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation in Pasadena found that a particular type of vaccine used to prevent pneumonia may also help prevent seniors from contracting COVID-19 and reduce the severity of the illness when they do become infected.

The study was published Tuesday in the Infectious Disease Societyof America’s Journal of Infectious Diseases. And involved examining health records of more than 530,000 patients over 65 years old. It was funded by Pfizer Inc., which also provided researchers to join the team. It revolved around a vaccine called PCV13, which is sometimes used to protect at-risk senior citizens from 13 types of bacteria that cause pneumococcal disease, Kaiser said in a written statement.

But the study found that it also showed potential in the fight against the novel coronavirus, according to Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation Scientist Dr. Sara Y. Tartof.

“Kaiser Permanente members who received the PCV13 vaccine appeared to be diagnosed with COVID-19 less often, and when they were, they seemed to have less severe outcomes, overall,” she said.

“One of the most interesting aspects of our findings was that the patients who received PCV13 received some protection against COVID-19, while those who received PPSV23, another pneumococcal vaccine, did not,” she explained.

Although approved COVID-19 vaccines remain the most potent and important tool in the fight against the virus, “investigators found that older adults who received pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), which prevents acquisition of certain pneumococcal strains, experienced 35% lower risk of COVID-19 diagnosis than adults who did not receive the vaccine,” according to the Kaiser statement.

The research may shed light on the complex interactions between typically harmless bacteria that reside in human bodies and viruses.

“This new Kaiser Permanente study provides evidence that these bacterial-viral interactions may play out in ways that shape the course of COVID-19,” the statement said.

The new findings may be useful in developing an improved understanding, as well as improved treatments, for respiratory illness, lead study author Joseph A. Lewnard of the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Pacific Health.

“Over the years we have learned that pneumococci interact with influenza, RSV, and several other viruses in the airway. These observations with SARS-CoV-2 help to suggest that the phenomenon may be more general than we have previously appreciated,” he said.

” As with any research study, this one did have some limitations including that some of the early COVID-19 cases were identified by diagnostic codes in the electronic health records rather than laboratory tests, and that some other potential factors, such as the association between vaccine access and compliance with social distancing were not accounted for in the data.

The study can be found online at academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiab128/6164926.