Évelyne RENAUD-GARABEDIAN is a senator for the French living outside France.
FIGAROVOX. - Many French expatriates, vaccinated abroad, do not manage to obtain the QR code necessary for the health pass, once in France. Which countries does this concern?
Évelyne RENAUD-GARABEDIAN. -
In principle, European countries are not affected by this difficulty thanks to the European health passport (although we have also observed problems with QR Code recognition in the Tous Anti Covid application for Europeans as well).
The issue of the QR Code concerns all countries outside the EU since there is no interoperability of QR Codes outside of Europe and that is the problem.
In many countries, we are vaccinated with an EU approved vaccine without necessarily obtaining a QR Code.
However, today health professionals in France can "validate" the vaccination of a French citizen abroad if they notice that their vaccination schedule is complete. Simply, this procedure is not at all clear and most of these professionals are not aware of it. Instruction was even reportedly given by the Ministry of Health to avoid doing so. However, in the software to which pharmacists have access, for example, it is possible to register a vaccination abroad, with the country of vaccination, the corresponding vaccine lot number, etc. Of course, this only concerns the 4 (or 5) vaccines recognized in Europe: Pfeizer, Moderna, Johnson, AstraZeneca and AstraZeneca Indian (Covishield).
The Secretary of State for French Abroad indicated that a cell would be created at the Quai d'Orsay to validate the vaccinations carried out abroad, but for the moment the greatest vagueness remains.
Evelyne RENAUD-GARABEDIAN
How do you explain that the legislator did not take these specific cases into account?
Olivier Véran and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne had undertaken to find a solution before the adoption of the law on the extension of the Health Pass.
However, it is clear that there is to date no clear instructions.
The Secretary of State for French Abroad indicated that a cell would be created at the Quai d'Orsay to validate the vaccinations carried out abroad, but for the moment the greatest vagueness remains.
However, summer is precisely the period when the greatest number of French people living abroad return to France, and they have largely followed the instructions of the French government, namely to be vaccinated according to the vaccination plan of their Country of Residence.
In the defense of the government, it is certain that the problem of vaccine recognition and the interoperability of QR Codes are extremely complex since each country is sovereign and has set up its own vaccination system.
However, this does not explain the lack of anticipation, the government having been alerted for several months on this subject.
Throughout the Arab world, vaccination against Covid-19 is mainly done at Chinese Sinopharm or AstraZeneca produced in India. Vaccines that do not comply with European standards. Are there the “good vaccines” on the one hand and the “bad” ones on the other?
On the one hand, there are vaccines approved by the European Union, and which have therefore followed the entire process of the European Medicines Agency, and on the other hand those which are not or not yet approved by this agency.
Sinopharm is used in the Arab world, but not only.
It is widely used in Latin America, as is also the case with Sputnik.
If you live in China, the “right vaccine”, the one you absolutely need to continue doing your daily activities, is Sinopharm and nothing else.
So the “right” vaccine depends on where you are.
The EU must do everything to ensure that the European Medicines Agency can do its work in the best conditions and as quickly as possible.
Evelyne RENAUD-GARABEDIAN
Do you think the EU should recognize them?
The EU must do everything to ensure that the European Medicines Agency can do its work in the best conditions and as quickly as possible.
What many French people living abroad do not understand is that the WHO recognizes vaccines that are not approved by the EU.
And that's normal.
But these are not the same procedures.
It is certain that everything must be done to improve the recognition of all the vaccines that have been produced in the world without giving a blank check to vaccines on which we do not have enough information.
Either way, the doctors I work with have always told me that it is better to be vaccinated with any vaccine rather than not to be vaccinated at all.
