Unvaccinated Heart Failure Patients At 3X Risk Of Death By COVID-19 Compared To The Vaccinated

COVID-19 vaccine can be truly life-saving for those who have suffered from heart failure, reveals a novel study conducted by Mount Sinai researchers.

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They conducted a retrospective study to analyse the impact of COVID-19 vaccination status in heart failure survivors, involving 7,094 patients from the Mount Sinai Health System (excluding those who received heart transplant and left ventricular assist device) who visited hospitals, or emergency departments between January 1, 2021, and January 24, 2022.

From the group 2,200 or around 31 percent were fully vaccinated with two doses, around 1,053 or around 14.8 percent were fully vaccinated with one booster, 645 or around 9.1 percent were partially vaccinated with only one dose, and 3,196 or around 45 percent were unvaccinated.

Researchers looked at survival rates and numbers of admissions to the hospitals and intensive care units between the groups, looking at both all-cause mortality and mortality associated with concurrent documented SARS CoV-2 infection.

Researchers found that the unvaccinated and partially vaccinated were three times more likely to die from the novel coronavirus compared to fully vaccinated and boosted individuals. In fact, unvaccinated and partially unvaccinated patients were 15 percent more likely to be hospitalised when infected and twice as likely to be admitted to the ICU, compared to fully vaccinated and boosted individuals.

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Anurhada Lala, MD, Director of Heart Failure Research and an Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai explained, "The findings further emphasise that heart failure patients need to take vaccines seriously since they have worse outcomes if infected with COVID-19 and stresses the importance of receiving the full COVID-19 vaccination dosage, especially since our previous work shows those with heart failure are 2.5 times more likely to die from the virus."

Dr Lala added, "I have used these results to help educate reluctant patients and in many cases, this has been effective in encouraging them and getting them to follow through with full vaccination. The hope is that cardiologists will use these results as a tool to help their patients and improve their chances of survival."