The measure was urgently requested by many associations and even by the Socialist Party.
It is almost done: in a press release made public this Friday, the High Authority for Health recommends offering vaccination against monkey pox (“monkeypox”) to exposed groups, and not only to contact cases.
In detail, this concerns men who have sex with men and trans people reporting multiple sexual partners, prostitutes, as well as “professionals in places of sexual consumption”.
The Ministry of Health should say, in the afternoon, if it follows this recommendation.
It is very likely, because he himself had seized the HAS on this subject a few days ago.
The health agency has in particular peeled the recommendations taken abroad.
Many countries, such as the United Kingdom or the United States, already offer exposed groups to be vaccinated.
HAS also took into account the efficacy data of the two third-generation vaccines, Imvanex and Jynneos, initially planned against smallpox but which are also effective against monkeypox.
721 cases identified in France
The HAS evokes a "context of health alert, marked by a rapid increase in Europe and in particular in France, of the number of cases occurring mainly, but not exclusively, in the population of men having sexual relations with several men".
Laëtitia Huiart, scientific director of Public Health France, indicated this Friday that 721 patients had been identified to date in France, the vast majority in Île-de-France.
Several doctors and association leaders, interviewed shortly before this recommendation, were in favor of it.
“Since we cannot effectively trace the chains of contamination, the logic is to try to circumscribe the epidemic by vaccinating the exposed populations, which have the advantage of being fairly well identified”, estimated for example the infectiologist Anne-Claude Crémieux.