Nearly 60,000 deaths could be prevented worldwide if people awaiting elective surgery were prioritized to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new global study.
An international team of researchers, including Western University Associate Professor Janet Martin, examined data from more than 140,000 patients at 1,667 hospitals in 116 countries.
"Based on what we know about the number of surgeries that occur globally, we were able to show we could save close to 60,000 patients around the world if we can immediately prioritize elective surgery patients for vaccines,” said Martin.
Previous studies have found up to 1.6 per cent of patients will develop a COVID-19 infection after surgery. That increases the risk of death by four to eight times within the first 30 days after an operation.
To put that into perspective, the research team, known as the COVIDSurg Collaborative, stated a person over the age of 70 undergoing cancer surgery would see their mortality rate jump from 2.8 per cent to 18.6 per cent if they contracted the virus.
The collaborative used the results of those previous surgical studies, along with available information on vaccine efficacy to estimate the impact of vaccinating all patients awaiting elective surgery.
“In every single age group that we looked at there was an advantage of having the vaccine before surgery, even among 18- to 49-year-olds and 50- to 69-year-olds, most of whom are not yet eligible for the vaccine," said Martin.
Overall, the pre-surgical vaccination of people was estimated to save more lives than giving the shot to the general population, the study found.
This is the first piece of evidence to identify surgical patients as a risk group in Canada in need of vaccination priority, according Martin.
The research also concluded pre-surgery vaccination is particularly important for low-and-middle-income countries, where nasal swab screening and COVID-free surgical pathways are unlikely to be universally implemented.
The collaborative stated it is crucial for policymakers to use the data provided in the study to support a safe restart of elective surgeries.
The study was published Thursday in the academic journal BJS.
