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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Robin McKie

Patients with Covid and flu double the risk of dying, say scientists

A walk-through flu vaccination centre in Seaford, East Sussex. People are being encouraged to get jabs for both Covid and influenza to lessen the risk of dying.
A flu vaccination centre in Seaford, East Sussex. People are being encouraged to get jabs for both Covid and influenza. Photograph: Jon Santa Cruz/Rex/Shutterstock

Covid-19 patients who have been hospitalised should also be routinely tested for flu, researchers have said. The call was made after the publication of a paper in the medical journal the Lancet that revealed having both conditions more than doubles the risk of a patient dying.

Scientists also discovered that individuals who had contracted both Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, and influenza viruses were more than four times more likely to require ventilation support and 2.4 times more likely to die than if they just had Covid-19.

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