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

There have been calls for those hospitalised with the coronavirus to be routinely test for influenza after new research revealed an increased mortality rate for those with both conditions

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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.