Europe 1 with AFP 10:00 am, December 03, 2021
Health Minister Olivier Véran announced on Friday that vaccination against Covid-19 for 5-11 year olds at risk of developing serious forms will be opened in "mid-end of December".
For the other children, it will probably be in January in a "progressive and optional" way.
Vaccination against Covid-19 will be open in "mid-end of December" to children aged 5 to 11 who are at risk of developing severe forms and probably to other children in January on a "gradual and optional" basis, announced this Friday the Minister of Health Olivier Véran.
The Haute Autorité de Santé "has already proposed that we can give priority to opening vaccination to children aged 5 to 11 who are at risk of developing serious forms. We could open it from mid-to the end of December", said the minister on France Info radio.
"Very few serious cases in children"
"The decision has not been formally taken but there is no reason not to do so," he added. Regarding children who are not at risk, "the HAS has not yet pronounced, it needs a little more time to tell us if the vaccine is perfectly safe and effective and if the benefit / risk balance is positive, in which case we will open vaccination to children probably at the beginning of January, gradually and on an optional basis, ”he continued.
According to Olivier Véran, the unprecedented incidence among 6-10 year olds, of 750 cases per 100,000 children of the same age group, is explained by the fact that "children cannot be vaccinated today".
"There are very few serious cases in children, but they can pass the virus on," he said.
"This is called a cocooning effect: when we protect and limit the spread of the virus in populations that do not have symptomatic forms, we avoid the spread to the most fragile populations", a- he concluded.