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"The fears about the Covid extend to other vaccines", worry the doctors

2021-05-13T16:52:58.526Z


INFO LE PARISIEN. Are you immune to pneumococcus, papillomavirus, hepatitis B? Doctors warn about the decline in vaccines


“My son is 15 years old, he hasn't gone out for weeks, so now is not the time to think about hepatitis B.” Professor Patrick Marcellin has heard a lot of this type of phrase in recent months.

“Patients tend to think they can wait until the epidemic is over.

However, we know what happens when we wait: we zap!

»Worries the hepatologist.

Watching the gauge of injections against the Covid rise every evening, one would almost forget the “other” vaccines, those which nevertheless punctuate our daily lives and prevent the development of multiple diseases. If the decline in the eleven compulsory vaccines for infants during the first confinement has since been filled, the situation is different for those used during childhood and possible catch-up until adulthood.

According to the Gers (Group for the development and production of statistics), which compiles sales figures in the pharmaceutical industry, their use fell by 10% between the months of February 2020 and 2021. Catching up against meningococcus: - 9%, against MMR (measles-mumps-rubella): -11%, against hepatitis B: the decrease exceeds 20%. After a first alarming finding in November, the data from the Epi-Phare scientific group expected at the end of the month should not be more reassuring. "It is not excluded to see a deficit in the so-called routine, tetanus, HPV vaccination (

Editor's note: human papillomavirus infections

) ... Clearly, that there have been fewer vaccines than expected" anticipates its president, professor of epidemiology Mahmoud Zureik.

"The awakening of Antivax does not only concern the coronavirus"

So, this Tuesday morning, health professionals (including the French-speaking Pneumology Society, SPLF, and SOS hepatitis and liver diseases) as well as patient associations sounded the alert.

“We were already not very good before him, and are even less so since the Covid.

The epidemic has left vaccines on the side of the road ", regrets Chantal Raherison-Semjen, president of the SPLF who is thinking in particular of immunization against pneumococcus in adults at risk of complications, suffering from COPD (chronic bronchopneumopathy). obstructive), asthma, pulmonary fibrosis ...

“In consultation, we see more and more patients who wonder about the usefulness of this vaccination, however essential. The fears they may have about the Covid extend to all vaccines, explains the pulmonologist. We have to be doubly reassuring about anti-Covid and anti-pneumococcal injections! "

“The awakening of Antivax does not only concern the coronavirus, they bring out old fears about other products and sow doubt, in general, confirms Patrick Marcellin.

For the vaccine against hepatitis B, long wrongly suspected of causing multiple sclerosis, this is all the more unfortunate that we were starting to go up the slope and catch up with our Italian and German neighbors, Spanish… ", breaths the doctor, who is convinced of it," we neglected other preventions to focus on the Covid.

"On the contrary, let's take advantage of him to talk about all the vaccinations and wring the necks out of all the Fake News", encourages Professor Raherison-Semjen.

Adolescents unprotected against papillomavirus

But there is also a factual element of the calendar: “We have been recommended to leave a three-week gap between a Covid vaccination and a non-Covid one.

With the combination of the two doses, this can delay the classic vaccination schedule a little.

This should make up for it, “proclaims Jean-Paul Hamon, honorary president of the Federation of Doctors of France.

At the head of the Imagyn association which fights against gynecological cancers, Coralie Marjollet is less optimistic.

In 2020, according to Epi-flagship, 230,000 vaccinations against the papillomavirus, this sexually transmitted disease responsible for 3,000 cervical cancers per year, have not taken place.

“There is no indication that they have been caught since. There was no massive return to consultation. Some adolescents will leave the recommendation without having been immunized

(Editor's note: the HPV vaccine is recommended for girls and boys aged 11 to 14

with a possible catch-up between 15 and 19

). "It will mortgage the future of a whole part of these age groups", is moved Coralie Marjollet. So, for Patrick Marcellin, a single watchword: "Do not forget the other vaccines, they also save lives".

Source: leparis

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