An Indian-American researcher Girish N. Nadkarni-led study has revealed that COVID vaccination is associated with fewer heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular issues among people who were infected with the coronavirus.

It is the first study to examine both full and partial vaccination and the link to major adverse cardiac events (MACE) in the US, confirming similar analyses performed previously using the Korean COVID-19 registry.

Analysing the most extensive datasets in the US, the team from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai reached this conclusion.

"We sought to clarify the impact of previous vaccination on cardiovascular events among people who develop COVID-19 and found that, particularly among those with co-morbidities, there is an association with a lower risk of complications," said Nadkarni, Irene and Dr Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine at Icahn Mount Sinai.

"While we cannot attribute causality, it is supportive evidence that vaccination may have beneficial effects on a variety of post-COVID complications," added Nadkarni, also director of The Charles Bronfman Institute of Personalised Medicine, in a paper published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

To their surprise, even partial vaccination was associated with a lower risk of adverse cardiovascular events.

"Given the magnitude of SARS-CoV-2 infection worldwide, we hope our findings could help improve vaccination rates, especially in individuals with coexisting conditions," said first study author Joy Jiang, a candidate in the lab of Nadkarni.

The team said that further work will be necessary to elucidate the mechanisms involved from an immunological perspective and clarify the role of COVID virus subtypes and reinfections in their relationship to the risk of MACE.