The impact of immunotherapies on COVID-19 case fatality rates during the US vaccination campaign: a multidisciplinary open data analysis using FDA Adverse Event Reporting System and Our World in Data

Anke Salmen; Stefanie Marti; Andreas G F Hoepner; Andrew Chan; Robert Hoepner

doi:10.3389/fphar.2023.1186404

The impact of immunotherapies on COVID-19 case fatality rates during the US vaccination campaign: a multidisciplinary open data analysis using FDA Adverse Event Reporting System and Our World in Data

Front Pharmacol. 2023 Jun 15:14:1186404. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2023.1186404. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Anke Salmen¹, Stefanie Marti¹, Andreas G F Hoepner^{2

3}, Andrew Chan¹, Robert Hoepner¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
² Department of Banking and Finance, Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
³ Department for Financial Stability and Capital Markets (DG FISMA), Platform for Sustainable Finance, European Commission, Brussels, Belgium.

Abstract

Introduction: Patients under immunotherapies were excluded from the pivotal trials of vaccinations against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and no population-level data on disease outcomes such as case fatality rates in relation to vaccination coverage exist. Our study aims to fill this gap by investigating whether CFRs in patients with immunotherapies decrease with increasing vaccination coverage in the total population. Methods: We combined aggregated open source data on COVID-19 vaccination coverage from "Our World in Data" with publicly available anonymized COVID-19 case reports from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System to compute COVID-19 CFRs for patients under immunotherapy at different vaccination coverage levels in the total population. CFRs at different vaccination coverage levels were then compared to CFRs before vaccination campaign start. Results: While we found an overall decrease in CFRs on population level with increasing vaccination coverage, we found no decrease in people using anti-CD20 or glucocorticoids. Discussion: Risk-mitigation strategies on an individual- and population-level are thus still needed to lower the probability of fatal SARS-CoV2 infection for these vulnerable populations.

Keywords: COVID-19; FAERS; SARS-CoV-2; immunotherapy; mortality; our world in data; vaccination SARS-CoV-2.

Grants and funding

This study was funded by the strategic research fund of the Medical Faculty of the University of Bern 2021–2023. The funding body was not involved in study design, the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, or the decision to submit the manuscript.