Where are the doses?
Scattered all over the place, but above all absent from the arms of millions of French women and men who could nevertheless have benefited from it.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is undoubtedly the “unloved” of the various products against Covid used in France.
Judging by the figures: as of Sunday, May 16, 7.8 million doses had been received.
But only 4.4 million had been used, the vast majority for the first injections (the recommended difference between the two doses is twelve weeks).
3.4 million doses are therefore fallow, which corresponds to a utilization rate of only 56%.
This rises to 88% for Moderna and more than 90% for the juggernaut Pfizer.
Read also Covid: how Pfizer became the flagship of vaccination in France
So where are these AstraZeneca doses?
Stored waiting for second injections, in the fridge for lack of volunteers, thrown away ..?
Relaunched several times, the Directorate General of Health sent us on Tuesday evening the following breakdown: 1.4 million among doctors, 600,000 among pharmacists, 700,000 among nurses, 3,000 among midwives, to whom he 500,000 must be added stored in “pivot” health platforms and establishments (awaiting dispatch to pharmacies) and 200,000 intended for vaccination centers.
Which makes a total of 3.4 million.
Tuesday, May 11, on France 2, Jean Castex nevertheless indicated that "only" 2 million AstraZeneca doses had not been used.
500,000 doses delivered to Covax by the end of June
Still according to the DGS, 41,000 doctors, 22,000 pharmacists and 5,800 nurses have ordered vaccines since the start of the crisis. On average, each would therefore have several vials (ten doses each). A part may be unused due to a lack of volunteers - the daily number of people receiving a first dose of AstraZeneca has fallen, in two months, from 100,000 to less than 20,000, according to figures from Public Health France -, and another may have been set aside for second injections to be performed in the coming weeks. "I give my needs: three vials this week and three in two weeks and my pharmacist stores what I need," says general practitioner Jonathan Favre, who can no longer find potential first-time recipients.
The unused total necessarily also includes the doses discarded.
The phenomenon is surely in the minority, but doctors have said that they had to get rid of bottled funds, due to a lack of volunteers to be vaccinated.
Still, the deliveries will not stop there.
The contract signed with AstraZeneca provides for the arrival of 7 million additional doses by the end of June.
This vaccine being reserved for over 55 years, like that of Janssen's single-dose, France is likely to find itself with stocks on the arms at the beginning of the summer.
500,000 doses, the vast majority of AstraZeneca, must also be "given" by France to African countries via the Covax device by the end of June.
100,000 have already been delivered at the end of April.