COVID-19 measures found to also reduce life-threatening invasive bacterial infections
- The number of S. pneumoniae, H. influenzae, and N. meningitidis cases during 2020–21 was approximately half the expected number each year compared to pre-pandemic totals;
- During the pandemic there was a significantly reduced risk of invasive disease caused by S. pneumoniae (relative risk: 0.47; 95% CI: 0.40–0.55), H. influenzae (0.51; 0.40–0.66) and N. meningitidis (0.26; 0.21–0.31). There was no significant change in the risk of invasive disease caused by S. agalactiae (1.02; 0.75–1.40);
- There were no major changes in the overall patterns of disease by patient age or bacterial serotype/serogroup;
- Invasive disease cases began to increase in some countries as pandemic restrictions were lifted;
- Over 36,000 estimated cases of invasive bacterial disease were averted during the first two years of the pandemic in the 30 countries participating in this study.
Source: Read Full Article