- To date, no vaccine against the coronavirus is yet available, but several laboratories are working on it.
- The European Union has ordered hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine.
- France is therefore considering the vaccine strategy that it will implement, and already seems to rule out the path of compulsory vaccination.
Mask compulsory in shops. Mask obligatory in the street. And compulsory mask in companies from September 1. While France is experiencing a rebound in the coronavirus epidemic, the public authorities are betting on wearing a mask to try to stem its spread, for lack of effective treatment or vaccine for the time being.
Today, the whole world is thus suspended from advances in scientific research, and from the arrival of an effective vaccine that would ensure immunity against Covid-19. If no vaccine market date is known to date, each country is already developing its vaccine strategy. In Australia, which is currently experiencing a major epidemic, the head of government wants to make vaccination mandatory to ensure group immunity to his fellow citizens. A political choice that has little chance of being emulated in France. "Making a vaccine compulsory requires a law, so this is the result of a political decision based on expertise," Prof. Daniel Floret, vice-president of the Technical Committee on Vaccinations, attached to the High Authority , explained to 20 Minutes. health (HAS). The question will arise when a vaccine becomes available to the general public ”.
Organize vaccination according to "targeting priority populations"
For the time being, the French vaccine strategy seems rather to rule out the path of compulsory vaccination. The Scientific Council, which advises the government in its management of the coronavirus crisis, thus opted in its opinion of July 27 for "targeting priority populations", which it considers "a crucial component of the vaccine strategy".
"All the countries which are developing their vaccine strategy in the face of Covid-19 agree that we are moving towards prioritizing vaccination." The Scientific Council therefore recommends "prioritization of access according to health risks, populations at occupational risk, strategic jobs as well as socio-eco-demographic characteristics". Clearly, "the vaccine would be administered as a priority to people exposed to the virus in the course of their professional activity: healthcare personnel, those who work in contact with the public or in an exposed environment, but also all those who are vulnerable in because of their age or their state of health, ”suggests Professor Daniel Floret.
Protecting those most exposed and vulnerable to the virus, a measure of common sense, but is this enough to ensure group immunity that would protect the entire population? Not sure. In Australia, where the government is considering making the coronavirus vaccine mandatory, health authorities estimate that 95% of the population would need to be immunized to eradicate the virus.
Manage vaccine stocks
So why not vaccinate everyone? Because it is not sure that this is possible. As no vaccine has yet been scientifically validated and marketed, the hypothesis of its use must be considered with pragmatism. “For now, many unknowns remain: When will we have a vaccine? Will it be effective? Will there be something for everyone? And what will be the state of the pandemic when it becomes available? Will we be in the peak phase? Or will the epidemic be almost extinct already? “Asks Professor Floret, who does not think that a vaccine will be available“ for many months ”. "In this context, prioritizing vaccination is common sense, but also necessity: vaccines will not arrive in millions of doses with the snap of a finger, they will probably be distributed gradually," he adds. .
As research accelerates to find a vaccine, the European Commission announced on Thursday that it had reserved 225 million doses of the potential Covid-19 vaccine from the German CureVac. This is the fourth such agreement reached by the EU with laboratories. Brussels has already reserved 300 million of the vaccine in preparation for the French Sanofi, and 400 million for that of the American Johnson & Johnson.
On August 14, the Commission also signed an advance purchase contract with the Swedish-British pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca for 300 million doses, with an option for 100 million additional doses. “The European Commission is keeping its promise to provide Europeans and the world with rapid access to a safe vaccine that protects us against the coronavirus. Each round of negotiations that we conclude with the pharmaceutical industry brings us closer to victory against this virus ”, welcomed the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday.
A strategy for managing the anti-vaccine movement
For its part, if France is moving towards targeted vaccination, it is also because "making vaccination against the coronavirus compulsory could fuel the general mistrust against vaccines, but we know that anti-vaccines are quite numerous in France ”, blows Professor Floret. A fear taken into account by the Scientific Council, which is considering "the acceptability of the vaccine by the populations, an essential condition for the success of a vaccination campaign," he indicates in his opinion. The reluctance to vaccination in France is a known phenomenon, widely studied in the case of influenza vaccination. A vaccination campaign against COVID-19 could run up against the reluctance of some of our fellow citizens, as some surveys suggest ”.
Thus, according to a survey conducted by Public Health France for its epidemiological bulletin of July 30, “if a vaccine were now available against the coronavirus, 28.9% of those questioned declared that they would certainly be vaccinated, 33.3% probably ”, we learn. And more than 22.1% of those polled said they "probably would not get the vaccine and 15.6% definitely not". For the Scientific Council, which is working on "a set of proposals focused on communication", it is important "not to repeat the failure of the 2009-2010 influenza vaccination".
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