Little surprise by discovering the figures for vaccination against Covid-19 in minors, published for the first time by Public Health France on Thursday evening.
It was expected to find the number of adolescents aged 12 to 17 vaccinated, but no children of younger ages.
And yet: as of June 30, it appears that 5,272 boys and girls under 12 have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
In detail, there are 2,264 aged 0 to 4, 1,086 aged 5 to 9, and 1,922 aged 10 or 11.
972 of them are fully vaccinated.
However, no vaccine has received marketing authorization for children under 12 years old.
Only Pfizer is, for the moment, for 12-17 year olds (Moderna could be validated in turn in July).
Read alsoCovid-19: "Unthinkable to vaccinate a child who does not want it"
Asked this Friday morning during a press point, Public Health France confirms that these figures "reflect reality" and are not due to input errors.
“There is the possibility of vaccinating, including without marketing authorization, young children who present very severe risk factors [of Covid-19].
We do not have the information child by child, but the vast majority very likely corresponds to this kind of individual decision, ”explains Daniel Lévy-Bruhl, epidemiologist at the health agency.
Several pathologies concerned
In a notice published on March 24, 2021 on its site, the French Pediatric Society already noted that "a very small number of children at very high risk of severe Covid-19 could be vaccinated according to the same schedule as adults, from as possible, despite the absence of marketing authorization ”.
Those affected in particular are those suffering from autoimmune polyendocrinopathy, or those having a genetic predisposition to viral encephalopathies.
This number of 5,272 remains very low, however, compared to the nearly 10 million children under 12 in France.
Vaccination coverage with at least one dose is therefore less than 0.1% in this age group.
Among 12-17 year olds, it went from less than 1% to 13.4% in three weeks.
