France launches its flu vaccination campaign on Tuesday, the authorities hoping to avoid a heavy epidemic in a health context already marked by a wave of Covid-19.
"
There is every interest in getting vaccinated quickly for people at risk
," warned immunologist Jean-Daniel Lelièvre in early October, during a press briefing from the ANRS, the public agency for the fight against infectious diseases.
To this end, from Tuesday, October 18, the targeted people will be able to get a free flu shot from a doctor, pharmacy, nurse or midwife.
These people mainly include those over 65, pregnant women, patients with severe obesity (whose body mass index, BMI, is greater than 40) or certain chronic diseases such as diabetes.
The flu vaccine will be reserved for them
until November 15
.
Subsequently, all French people will be able to benefit from it but at their own expense if they are not part of the target.
Influenza: a difficult year ahead
Currently, the flu is limited to a few sporadic cases in France, and it is impossible to know what scale the epidemic will take.
But several experts are already worried about a difficult year.
“
There are several reasons
”, detailed Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, referring in particular to data from countries in the southern hemisphere, including Australia: the flu epidemic, which takes place there before the countries of the North, resulted in fairly severe symptoms.
But the concerns also come from the context linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
After almost three years, “
we use the
mask much less
, we pay less attention
”, underlines the immunologist.
Few vaccinated against the flu last year
Another negative element, last year, in a blurred context by the launch of a booster vaccination campaign against Covid, the French received little vaccination against the flu: barely more than half of those eligible did.
“
So immunity tends to drop in the general population
,” concluded Mr. Lelièvre.
This year, again, the authorities are challenged with double vaccination against influenza and Covid.
For the Covid, a new recall campaign is already at work but, with the flu, the targets tend to largely overlap.
Among the few discrepancies, people between the ages of 60 and 65 are concerned by anti-Covid and not anti-flu vaccination.
No worries,
a priori
, in terms of supply.
The French giant Sanofi, which supplies around half of the vaccines in the country, reported production “
far above demand
”.
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Risk of a late epidemic
The risk rather concerns a lack of clarity at the level of the articulation between the two vaccinations: instead of a joint launch, the anti-Covid campaign began at the beginning of October.
In question, the emergence at the start of the school year of a new wave of Covid, which prompted the health authorities to hurry.
Why, then, not advance the campaign against the flu?
“
If we start too early, (…) we take a risk that people will not be covered if we have a late flu epidemic
”, we explain to the Ministry of Health.
However, last season, the flu epidemic was precisely exceptionally late: it peaked at the beginning of spring and not, as usual, at the turn of the new year.
In any case, the health authorities would like to encourage eligible French people to kill two birds with one stone: get vaccinated against Covid in one arm, and against the flu in the other.
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Reluctance
A certain number of our fellow citizens have reluctance (and) "
despite the proven absence of risk
", we admit to the ministry.
Nevertheless “
the message is still to have the two vaccinations in a relatively short period of time.
»
Beyond vaccination alone, the authorities are also trying to articulate a discourse that encompasses the fight against the two diseases, at a time when the current wave of Covid is meeting relatively little media coverage despite hospitalizations and deaths. rising.
“
We must not trivialize
” the Covid, declared Thursday the Minister of Health, François Braun, “
we must also protect ourselves from the flu.
That's good, the barrier gestures, they protect from one as from the other.
»