A pharmacy in Paris (illustrative image).

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ISA HARSIN / SIPA

All vaccines against Covid-19 must be able to be administered by pharmacists, nurses and midwives, in addition to doctors, in order to speed up the vaccination campaign, the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommended on Tuesday .

Until now, the HAS estimated that only the AstraZeneca vaccine could be injected by pharmacists and midwives, and not the other two available in France, those of Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna.

The extension of the skills of all these health professionals "is a lever to accelerate the vaccination campaign", underlined the president of the HAS, Dominique Le Guludec, during an online press conference.

Extend the skills of pharmacists and midwives

The objective is "to diversify the profile of vaccinators, to increase the number of places of vaccination and, ultimately, to simplify this vaccination", she continued, estimating that "vaccination by pharmacists will be able to streamline and accelerate the vaccination process ”.

Once formulated, HAS opinions must then be approved by the government to enter into force.

In addition to the administration of vaccines, the HAS also recommends extending the skills of the various health professionals for their prescription.

She therefore recommends that pharmacists can prescribe all Covid vaccines, except for pregnant women and people with a blood problem called hemostasis disorder.

In addition, she advises that midwives can also prescribe vaccines to women, "especially pregnant women."

For now, vaccinations against Covid mainly take place in hospitals and vaccination centers.

However, a new stage of the campaign opened last Thursday, with the possibility for city doctors and occupational physicians to inject the AstraZeneca vaccine to people aged 50 to 64 with co-morbidities.

Encouraging new study

In addition, the HAS justified in its opinion the decision to now administer the AstraZeneca vaccine to over 65s, announced the day before by the Minister of Health Olivier Véran.

This expansion was motivated by new data from a study conducted in Scotland, which show "extremely encouraging percentages of efficacy" of the AstraZeneca vaccine to avoid hospitalization in the elderly, explained Elisabeth Bouvet, president. of the Technical Commission for Vaccinations of the HAS.

This study shows in particular that 28 to 34 days after the first injection, the AstraZeneca vaccine was 94% effective in avoiding hospitalization, while it was "administered mainly in patients over 65 years old", according to the HAS.

In its opinion, the HAS "stresses, however, that these results relate to hospitalizations and do not quantify the impact of the AstraZeneca vaccine on the occurrence of symptomatic forms of the disease, or on the reduction in deaths".

Updated opinions

However, "these results allow us without a second thought to extend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to people over 65, and without upper age limit," commented Professor Le Guludec.

At first, the HAS had recommended on February 2 not to administer the AstraZeneca vaccine to over 65s.

"The clinical data available at that time were not sufficient" for this age group, justified Professor Le Guludec, recalling that the HAS "updates its opinions based on the data that come out".

"For people who are 75 years old and over, it is always Pfizer or Moderna" which will be injected "in the vaccination center", Olivier Véran said on Monday evening.

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