Vaccine doses will be missing in Europe for several months -
Gene J. Puskar / AP / SIPA
After an auspicious month of January in vaccination, the European Union is preparing to slow down and extend its vaccine campaigns.
European countries mainly evoke a delay in the delivery of doses by the various laboratories.
Is this really the only reason, and could Europe not have anticipated this kind of risk?
This is yet another new crisis in the crisis.
The European Union is facing a shortage of vaccine against the coronavirus, pushing to slow down and lengthen the vaccination campaigns of the member countries.
Thus, Portugal has already indicated that its vaccination campaign would be longer than expected, when Germany mentioned a shortage whose effects will be felt at least until April.
In France, short-term vaccine ambitions have also been revised downwards.
While last week, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran announced a total of four million people vaccinated in France at the end of February, the target has now dropped to 2.5 million, of which only one million people receiving a first dose in the month.
How did we get here ?
Delays everywhere
In addition to the delay of the vaccine from the Sanofi laboratory, which no one can say when it will arrive but which should be at least several months behind what was expected, the vaccines currently available have taken delivery delays.
Thus, due to a logistical reorganization with the aim of subsequently speeding up production, Pfizer-BioNTech cut part of its capacity for two weeks, which will result in 200,000 fewer doses in France at the end of January.
AstraZeneca for its part announced that it would deliver only 4.6 million doses to France by the end of March, or 29% of the volumes initially promised.
And this Thursday, Moderna said it reduced its deliveries to France by 25% in February.
Why are all production lines spinning?
The CEO of Moderna explained this in an interview with LCI: “The launch of production lines, often slow, takes place in real time, without prior stock.
So as soon as there is a small slip, which would usually be normal, it is immediately visible.
"
A good initial strategy
Observation for Eric Billy, researcher in immuno-oncology in Strasbourg, difficult to attribute the fault to the European Union, the one which placed the orders for all the member countries: “Its strategy of betting on several vaccines and types of vaccines, so as not to put all of her eggs in one basket, looked pretty good on paper.
Today, she is paying for the delay in protein vaccines - like Sanofi.
"For doctor Christian Lehmann, the worst-case scenario has even been avoided: the European Union has at least partly relied on Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna when some politicians called for not betting on RNA vaccines for several more months: "And in that case, how would we have done?"
"
Bad luck, then?
A little easy, tempers Eric Billy: “We cannot either say that the risk of a vaccine being delayed was completely unknown or could not be anticipated.
To counter this danger somewhat, the doctor would have liked the European Union to buy a large surplus of doses of each vaccine, in order to maximize arrivals and to be able more easily to compensate for a lack or a delay.
Of course, Europe has already ordered a little more doses than expected - France for example will have a total of more than 200 million doses, for a population of 70 million, or 140 million doses needed.
"But Europe could have bet on even more rab, given the low cost of each dose, and then gave the surplus to poor countries", pleads the researcher.
Logistical difficulties more than quantity?
So much for the dose problems.
The fact remains that it is not entirely sufficient to explain the delay that most European countries risk taking.
This would also be due to a logistical problem, with the difficulty of carrying out the primary vaccination and booster campaigns simultaneously.
More clearly said, to vaccinate both people for the first time and to apply the second dose to people already vaccinated.
Christian Lehmann is a little desperate for the situation: "Nothing has been planned logistically for the second dose, it was impossible at the beginning for the patients having been vaccinated for the first time to make an appointment for the second. dose on a dedicated line, everything was mixed.
"Consequently," nobody thought of securing the doses ", he is irritated.
Namely that the state did not ensure at the beginning that there would be enough doses for the reminders when it launched its vast plans of vaccinations.
Manage both flows in February
After hesitating to extend the time between the first and second vaccinations to six weeks, before retracing its steps and applying a rule of no more than three to four weeks, France must now manage a large number of reminders in February. , obviously much more numerous than in January.
Thus, this Thursday, out of 1,234,731 people vaccinated in France, only 11,739 had received the two injections, ie a little less than 1%.
"European countries are struggling to manage these two flows simultaneously," said Eric Billy, "all the more so with the fear of variants", which pushed to massively speed up vaccination in January - thus, the objective of one million people vaccinated was initially expected at the end of February, before opening the vaccination to caregivers and people over 75 years old outside nursing homes to accelerate the pace.
February will be the month when this massive January acceleration will be felt.
Communication at half mast
Braking therefore regrettable but absolutely necessary, recalls Christian Lehmann: “The worst scenario would be to make the reminders badly, by mixing the vaccines or by spacing the duration.
We would have a poorly vaccinated and poorly protected population.
"
Still, for him, these delays further highlight the government's communication problems: “Everyone could hear that vaccines produced in a few months are late, or that Sanofi is arriving more slowly than expected.
But the government refuses to make it clear, once again, and infantilizes the French.
And so far, no cure has been found for that.
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