Faced with lagging vaccinations against influenza and Covid and before an end of year conducive to epidemics, the health authorities called on Thursday for "increased mobilization".
"Given the winter period, the epidemic dynamics of respiratory viruses is likely to accelerate rapidly in the coming weeks and requires preparation," especially before the end-of-year holidays, warn the Ministry of Health and Access to Care, Health Insurance and Public Health France in a press release.
The vaccination campaign against influenza and Covid, which began in mid-October and primarily targets those most at risk, caregivers and other populations in contact with vulnerable people, seems to have started more slowly than last year.
The number of doses of flu vaccines delivered has thus fallen by 51%, with 8 million at this stage compared to 8.4 million at the same period in 2023, according to the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France.
"We are catching up a little but we are having trouble recovering from the bad start to the campaign," its president Philippe Besset told AFP.
But the flu epidemic is looming: indicators in community medicine as well as in hospitals have continued to increase over the past week, according to the latest bulletin from Santé publique France. Ile-de-France, Normandy, Hauts-de-France are in pre-epidemic.
On the Covid side, the situation is stable but may change.
Knowing that vaccines against the flu or Covid take around 15 days to be effective, we should not wait "to be protected during the end-of-year holidays", the authorities insist.
Stressing that "vaccinating the most vulnerable is the most effective way to prevent serious forms", the Minister of Health Genevieve Darrieusecq, quoted in the press release, strongly encouraged "the 17.2 million people invited to be vaccinated to contact their pharmacist, nurse, doctor or midwife to carry out this simple gesture which is useful for all".
Since last week, emails, voice messages and text messages have been sent to insured persons who have not yet been vaccinated.
At this stage, 4.5 million doses have been administered by pharmacists, an increase of 6% compared to the same period in 2023, according to the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France.
An awareness campaign by Health Insurance (“Don’t choose, get vaccinated against the flu AND against Covid-19”) will be rebroadcast in December.
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