the covid-19 infection in heart transplant recipients: a cohort study

Background: infectious diseases are major complications after solid organ transplantation. heart transplant patients have a high mortality rate after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars‐cov‐2) infection. coronavirus disease 2019 (covid‐19) vaccines have shown efficacy in generating specific immune response. this study aims to describe the covid-19 infection before and after vaccination in heart transplant recipients.methods: this was a single-center cohort study including 95 heart transplant recipients with laboratory radiological confirmed covid-19. results: covid-19 infection was present before vaccination in 33 (35.78%) patients. the most frequent covid-19 clinical presentations before vaccination were cough in 21 (63.63%) and myalgia in 19 (57.57%) patients; 12 (36.36%) were hospitalized; 17 (51.51%) cases had oxygen depletion and required supplemental oxygen; none of them needed invasive ventilation. of the entire 33 covid-19 patients, two patients (6.06%) re-experienced the disease about two months after complete vaccination and both of them were recovered. 63 heart transplant patients had not experienced covid-19 before vaccination, of which 59 patients received vaccination. after two months, 23 vaccinated patients were infected with covid-19 again, and 2 of the 3 patients who were not vaccinated were also infected. five patients passed away in the whole study.conclusion: heart transplant patients infected with sars-cov-2 are at greater risk of severe infection and death compared with immunocompetent individuals. thus, covid-19 vaccination for all ht recipients is of paramount importance.