Dozens of cases detected in the same area.
Screening and vaccination operations will be stepped up in Deux-Sèvres after the appearance, mainly in Niort, of around thirty positive cases for the same very rare variant which affected a district of Bordeaux last week, announced on Friday. health authorities.
After the discovery on Wednesday of three positive cases for this variant E484Q, "a contact-tracing and screening" had made it possible to detect as of Thursday "37 positive cases including 35 residing in Deux-Sèvres", announced the regional agency of health of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres in a press release.
# COVID_19 |
appearance in Deux-Sèvres of the E484Q variant.
It has the particularity of moving even faster than the others.
35 cases detected in a few days.
Everything is being done to break the chains of contamination and speed up vaccination.
https://t.co/ljs8byMRdu pic.twitter.com/YMAOvs0lwP
- Prefect of Deux-Sèvres (@ Prefet79) May 28, 2021
This is the variant of the English strain, with a mutation, "identical to that at the origin of the Bacalan cluster in Bordeaux" but "without any links having been identified between these two situations at this stage", they said. precise.
Of the 37 cases identified, 5 are under 20 years old and 6 are over 65 years old, and 21 live in Niort.
According to the authorities, these cases come from "several chains of contamination in the department including a main chain of transmission" of 30 cases.
Additional vaccine doses
"In order to break the chains of transmission" around this cluster, the ARS and the prefecture announced the strengthening from Saturday and for two weeks of screening operations by antigenic tests on the territory of the agglomerations of Niortais and Gâtine .
At the same time, for the week of June 1 to 6, “an exceptional complement of vaccine doses” will be sent to the Niort vaccination centers (2,700 Pfizer BioNTech doses) and to city doctors / pharmacists (1,500 Moderna doses). of the department.
In June, the number of Pfizer doses will be increased by 8,000 additional doses, reaching 21,800 doses / week in June against 12,300 doses / week in May.
Read also Covid-19: what we know about the "very rare" and "worrying" variant detected in a district of Bordeaux
According to a point published on Friday by the ARS, the incidence rate is 121.3 per 100,000 inhabitants in Deux-Sèvres, down slightly but still the highest of the twelve departments of Nouvelle-Aquitaine where the average rate of 77.6 per 100,000 inhabitants and where “viral circulation is relatively stable”.
This department is also the one where vaccination coverage at a dose is the least important in the region, after the Gironde, with 37.2% of the population of first-time vaccines (against 39.5% on average in New Aquitaine).
Classified as "worrying" by Public Health France, this very rare variant called VOC 20I / 484Q, has affected the Bacalan district in Bordeaux to an unprecedented scale, with dozens of positive cases, pushing the authorities to strengthen screening and open a new vaccination center.