The High Authority for Health (HAS) confirmed this Friday that those under 55 vaccinated against Covid-19 with a first dose of AstraZeneca will have their second with Pfizer or Moderna.
Olivier Véran obviously wishes to go further: the Minister of Health indicated that he had "seized the scientists" with the question of the interchangeability of messenger RNA vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna.
"We will see, scientists are starting to tell us that they are interchangeable," he said, exchanging with health professionals during a visit to a large vaccination center open Friday morning in Grenoble.
"They are telling us that if we do one or the other in the first or second injection, it's the same mechanics", continued the minister, arguing that this "would simplify" the organization of the vaccination.
"I am waiting for an immediate response from the health authorities" to validate this, "if it does not present any risks and that it is the effectiveness which is there".
The World Health Organization, for its part, assured Friday that it did not have "adequate data" on the interchangeability of vaccines and that its experts therefore did not recommend it "at this stage".
"You know, there are times when we follow the WHO and where we are criticized for following it, times when we do not follow it completely and where we are criticized for not following it. not follow it entirely… ”evaded Olivier Véran.
"Covid-related mortality is on the decline"
Visiting alongside the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region Laurent Wauquiez, the former deputy for Isère also indicated that "Covid-related mortality is declining in our country due to this vaccination strategy".
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"Hospital pressure continues to mount and the pressure for resuscitation will continue to rise for at least two weeks, that we know," added the minister, nevertheless acknowledging "signs of a lull at a high level" of the epidemic .
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The vaccination center opened this Friday at the Alpexpo congress center, south of Grenoble, the largest of those opened by the Region, allows the vaccination of 1,000 people per day.