The arrival of anti-Covid vaccines adapted to the variants in circulation does not make their predecessors “obsolete”, assured the Ministry of Health on Wednesday.

The latter admits, however, that it was better to receive an updated version as part of the current recall campaign.

“Conventional vaccines are not obsolete (and) remain effective, in particular against severe forms of the disease”, declared an executive of the general direction of Health (DGS), which depends on the ministry, during a conference online press.

An anti-Covid reminder campaign was launched on Monday with the most fragile people (over 60, immunocompromised, etc.) in a context of rebounding cases and hospitalizations.

This campaign accompanies the arrival of updated versions of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, which have been adapted to the Omicron variant, which has been ubiquitous since this year.

Eight million doses available by the end of October

However, this new generation of vaccines must arrive gradually in France: eight million doses available by the end of October, nearly 40 million by the end of the year.

This raises the question of the interest of receiving a “classic” vaccine dating from before the arrival of Omicron.

These latest vaccines remain useful and the authorities are not going to “dump them”, explained the ministry official.

But he also recognized that it was preferable to be administered an updated version because “bivalent vaccines (…) are the most effective weapons to fight against the disease today”.



More antibodies

It is, in fact, difficult to estimate how much better the new vaccines protect against serious forms than their predecessors, because their effectiveness has not yet been tested in this area.

Their authorization is based on their immunogenicity, ie the fact that they provoke an immune response - primarily measured by the production of antibodies - superior to their predecessors in the face of different incarnations of Omicron.

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  • Covid-19

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  • Ministry of Health