The High Authority of Health (HAS) indicates this Friday to have “evaluated the benefit of reducing the spacing between the primary vaccination and the booster dose”.
In reaction to the exponential spread of the Omicron variant in France and while a fifth wave of the Covid-19 epidemic is hitting the country hard, the HAS makes two recommendations.
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The body, which was seized by the Directorate General of Health in order to measure "the relevance of various measures", considers in the first place that it would be judicious, in view of the health situation, that the second booster of the vaccine against the Covid "is carried out from 3 months after the primary vaccination", for the eligible population.
The National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) had already spoken in this direction.
"The current worrying epidemic context justifies an acceleration of the vaccination campaign by shortening the time between primary vaccination and booster dose and by increasing the level of protection of the population", justifies the HAS, which recalls wanting to "limit as much as possible the number of new cases of infection and serious forms ”and“ avoid the saturation of health establishments ”.
"A rise in vaccine efficacy to 75%"
Faced with the very rapid spread of the Omicron variant in France, which the High Authority describes as "much more contagious than the Delta" and which "seems to partially escape vaccines", she believes, based on the first real-life data available , that the proposed vaccines "are effective against non-severe symptomatic forms of the Omicron variant 80% at 1-2 months".
They then lose "their effectiveness more quickly than with the previous variants", but there is "a rise in vaccine effectiveness to 75% two weeks after a booster dose", underlines the HAS.
A booster dose that would be injected into a large part of the population three months before the first - "but not before", insists the authority - "would reduce by 15% the mortality associated with Covid-19 linked to the Omicron variant », She also explains.
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Another recommendation: "In order to better protect them, the HAS recommends, like the ANSM, to administer a booster to adolescents from 12 to 17 years old, the most at risk.
"It targets:" adolescents from 12 to 17 years old suffering from immunodeficiency (pathological and induced by drugs) or from a serious risk comorbidity, according to the same procedures as adults.
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And highlights the concept of benefit / risk of these injections, to be assessed by the doctor, before any recall.
The administration of this booster to the entire population aged 12 to 17 years will be the subject of a new analysis, also indicates the HAS.
