Status quo
for the AstraZeneca.
This Monday morning, on LCI, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran indicated that the vaccination campaign with this serum will "probably" not be extended to those under 55 in France, as he had recently expressed the wish.
The High Authority for Health (HAS) decided in mid-March to restrict the use of the vaccine to people over 55 years of age because of rare cases of atypical thrombosis and coagulation disorders.
Asked whether the government was considering expanding the use of the vaccine to people under 55, the minister replied: "Probably not at present."
He seized the HAS at the end of April to study the possibility of allowing all volunteers, whatever their age, to be vaccinated at AstraZeneca by signing a waiver.
Read alsoVaccinate under 55s with AstraZeneca?
5 minutes to understand a hot debate
He said on Monday to wait for a response from HAS, while recalling that the president of the Vaccine Strategy Steering Committee, Alain Fischer, was "for his part not in favor" of this option.
Olivier Véran also provided an explanation for the words of Emmanuel Macron, who said Sunday on the sidelines of a European summit that "to respond to variants, we see that other vaccines (than AstraZeneca) are now more effective ".
61,000 doses of AstraZeneca in one day
According to the Minister of Health, the Head of State was responding "to a question on the horizon for next year, if new variants were to emerge requiring boosters of vaccination".
In this case, "we consider at the international level that other mechanisms than AstraZeneca could be more effective more quickly".
Olivier Véran affirmed that for all that, this product remained a “good vaccine”, and indicated that for the single day of Friday “the liberal (doctors, nurses…) made 61,000 (doses of) AstraZeneca in one day”.
He also detailed the state of stocks of this vaccine by explaining that of the two million doses received by the State last week, "700,000 were ordered by private doctors, nurses, midwives", 700,000 to 800,000 are set aside for a second injection and the remainder is kept for vaccination centers.
