Vaccination against Covid: HAS advises against Moderna for booster doses

Until then, booster injections against Covid-19 in France had to be “indifferently” carried out with the Pfizer vaccine or that of Moderna.

From now on, the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommends no longer using Moderna, at least temporarily, but only Pfizer.

The reason ?

A risk of pericarditis and myocarditis which could be greater, especially in the youngest.

People aged at least 65 and those suffering from comorbidities - since September 1 -, as well as all health and medico-social professionals - since the first week of October - are called upon to receive a booster dose. (most often this is a third dose).

In its opinion delivered last Tuesday, the HAS recalled that only Pfizer was the subject of an authorization from the European Medicines Agency for such “boosters”.

But Moderna was also already used for booster doses and the authority had not questioned it "so as not to disrupt the current campaign".

Scandinavian countries alert

In the meantime, the HAS has taken note of the alerts concerning the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following injections of Moderna doses, from the Scandinavian countries.

Last week, Sweden, Norway and Finland suspended or, at a minimum, advised against the use of this vaccine in adolescents or even young adults.

The health authorities say they are based on a study having "established that men injected with the Moderna vaccine and aged less than 30 years had a slightly increased risk of developing inflammation of the myocardium."

Read alsoCovid-19: 5 minutes to understand the suspension of Moderna among young people in Scandinavian countries

"This context, the currently moderate circulation of the virus and the work in progress at the EMA to define the target population and especially the dosage" lead the HAS to "return more strictly to a position of caution and recommend waiting for the EMA opinion ”, expected by the end of October.

It is therefore "as a precautionary principle" that it was decided to advise against the use of Moderna for and only for booster injections, we are told.

The caregivers called for an additional dose are sometimes young, and potentially the most at risk of such inflammations in the heart.

"Let's get the data, analyze them, and we'll see if something has to be decided," Mathieu Molimard, head of the medical pharmacology department at Bordeaux University Hospital, told us last week.

Moderna less used ... but more delivered than Pfizer

The government has no obligation to follow HAS recommendations, but it usually does and it will likely be the case again this time around.

Is this likely to undermine the vaccination strategy in France?

Hard to say.

At the moment, only a third out of 6 doses (most often a booster dose) is Moderna.

But while he had previously been a "dwarf" compared to the juggernaut Pfizer, the product of American biotech is now more delivered.

This week, France expects to receive 1.6 million Moderna doses and 1.2 million Pfizer doses, said the Ministry of Economy and Finance on Tuesday.