Michelle Petri who is the Director of The Johns Hopkins Lupus Center discusses the COVID-19 infection and vaccination and how they affect patients with lupus.
Mhm. Yeah. Unfortunately lupus patients have taken a big hit from Covid. This is because Covid Has had more of an impact in being more severe in Lupus patients. One of my 16 year old patients died. For example, in January. One of the reasons for this is that lupus patients are more subject to viral infections in general. And a second problem are the lupus treatments, some of which predisposed to covid. And that includes predniSONE doses above 20 mg. The use of riTUXimab and likely the use of michael Fennelly, which is our major therapy for lupus nephritis. What we found was that Covid infection did not lead to more lupus flares. I think that was a surprise and a particular surprise was that because after covid people had to quarantine we actually saw fewer lupus rations at the next visit. And the reason for this is avoidance of ultraviolet light protects the skin from lupus rash. Yeah, the reason this is important is that covid infection in the general population when it is severe, leading to hospitalization has been associated with anti foss lipid anim eyes. These occur in 50% of Lupus patients already and they're known to be a major predictive factor for blood clots thrombosis which is a major cause of death in people with covid particularly clots in the lungs. We found that covid infection in my lupus patients did increase anti fossil lipid antibiotics. Mm hmm. First of all I really want every person with lupus to be vaccinated against Covid. This is so important. I wanted to particularly study this so I could be reassuring to my patients. I found that covid vaccination was safe in my lupus patients. It did not lead to lupus flares and it did not increase any of the important anti fossil it'd antibodies. I hope this good news will lead many more people with lupus to get vaccinated. Yeah.
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