The vaccination campaign is accelerating.
While the start of the school year and the return of the holidays, coupled with the threat of new, more contagious variants of Covid-19, raise fears of a rebound in the epidemic, France, lagging behind globally, intends to catch up.
The government's goal, criticized for its slowness in starting the vaccination campaign, is to reach the figure of one million people vaccinated by January 31.
At the microphone of Europe 1 this Friday, January 8, the Minister in charge of Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, assured that on vaccine orders "
we are not late
".
She said France had ordered a total of "
200 million
" doses of vaccines "
since September
".
“
520,000 doses are delivered per week
”, or “
2.6 million doses delivered per month
”.
“
At European level, Europe has ordered 300 million doses from Pfizer.
The United States has ordered 200 million.
We have 450 million Europeans, there are 350 million Americans.
So we are not late
”, she hammered.
Read also: Massive vaccination: how can France be inspired by other countries?
If the production of vaccines takes place on a global scale, in France three sites will contribute to the war effort.
“
We have the Récipharm plant, located in France, which will produce the Moderna vaccine from the end of February, the beginning of March.
We will then have Delpharm
(pharmaceutical subcontracting company)
for the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and Fareva for the CureVac vaccine, if it obtains a marketing authorization, which will follow
”.
These three sites should be supported by the state.
"
They have filed a case under the recovery plan, two of them have already received a favorable decision and we continue to instruct,
" said the Minister.
European production chains
Agnès Pannier-Runacher, however, clarified that this production on French soil does not mean that the vaccines will be primarily distributed in France.
“
These are European production chains
”.
For the production of the Moderna vaccine, for example, “
the site where the active principle is produced is in Switzerland, because it is the one with the greatest RNA production capacities almost in Europe.
And this site serves all of Europe.
Bottling is carried out in several other countries, in this case Spain and France
”.
"
It is this solidarity which makes it possible to have this organization, which is as effective as possible
", she assured, denouncing the temptations of "
nationalist withdrawal where everyone would go and produce their little vaccine in their own corner
".
While the Germans are accused of having reserved several tens of millions of doses, the Minister for Industry assured that they had "
played the game
" of Europe.
Read also: Anti-covid vaccine: in Germany, the 238,000 injections carried out are considered insufficient