They consider this vaccination useless, fear side effects: the elderly, who can be killed by the flu, are not vaccinated enough in France, in particular the least qualified, those with the lowest incomes and living in rural areas, shows a survey published on Tuesday.
"Very insufficient", well below the target of 75% set by the health authorities, and "marked by social and territorial health inequalities": this snapshot of the anti-flu coverage of 65-85 year-olds is analyzed by Public Health France with regard to the 2020/2021 season.
In mainland France, 65.1% of these seniors were then vaccinated. Overseas, much less: 39.4% in Reunion, 38.1% in Guyana, 37.2% in Guadeloupe, 26.2% in Martinique, notes the agency based on data from its 2021 barometer – for which 6,216 people aged 65 to 85 were interviewed by telephone in mainland France and 1,156 overseas.
Among the unvaccinated, 1.7% of people spontaneously declared having been “vaccinated” by homeopathy – however, there is no homeopathic vaccine.
The situation deteriorated further in the following years. This winter, influenza vaccination coverage did not exceed 41% among people aged 65 and over at the end of November, more than a month after the start of the combined influenza-Covid vaccination campaign.
In this month of January, when a severe flu epidemic is raging, among the people hospitalized in intensive care throughout France, eight out of ten are not vaccinated.
In France, as elsewhere in Europe – Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, etc. – flu vaccination rates improved in the winter following the appearance of Covid-19, before falling again – in France, it is even below that of before the pandemic.
When asked about their reasons for not getting vaccinated, seniors in mainland France most often said they considered the vaccine useless (41.6%) – as in overseas France (32% to 39%) –, of no interest (9.6%) or feared its side effects (13.5%), according to the study. Only 5.9% said they were opposed to it.
– Social and territorial inequalities –
As with other vaccinations, the study shows significant variations revealing social inequalities: people with education (at least a bac+5) are more vaccinated (71.5%) than those with a baccalaureate or lower (64.3%), as are those who are more well-off (71%) compared to people with modest incomes (60.8%).
Older people living in large urban areas (69.1%), where "the risks of exposure to the virus are greater due to numerous social interactions", are more likely to be vaccinated than those in rural areas (62%).
Older seniors are more likely to be vaccinated (73.2% for 80-85 year olds versus 55.4% for 65-69 year olds), those with a chronic illness (71.1%) that exposes them to severe flu more than those who do not have one (57.8%).
Finally, those living as a couple (68.3%) are more vaccinated than those living alone (59.7%), probably "due to an altruistic position" in order to avoid transmitting the flu to the spouse, and men (67.9%) more than women (62.8%) - a lower female vaccination "already observed among professionals in health establishments" in the country, recalls SpF.
Compared to the rest of Europe, the vaccination coverage of French seniors was comparable, in 2020/21, to that of Italy (65.3%), Spain (68%), Norway (65.5%) or the Netherlands (61.4%). But Portugal (70%), Ireland (70.5%), Great Britain (81%) or the United States (69.8%) did better.
For the Academy of Medicine, the vaccination of seniors must become a "priority public health objective", because it increases "active and independent life span", avoids serious forms and complications of diseases, as well as "post-infectious functional decline" in particular.
Currently, "the limited time spent on medical consultations with elderly people, already largely devoted to monitoring chronic illnesses", can work "to the detriment of the attention paid to vaccination" by treating physicians, she said on Thursday, also pointing out "the isolation of certain seniors and the lack of coordination between the various health stakeholders".