In France, general practitioners will be authorized to vaccinate against Covid-19
In France, general practitioners will be able to start vaccinating from February 25.
REUTERS - BENOIT TESSIER
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5 mins
In France, general practitioners will be able to vaccinate some of their patients against Covid-19 from next week with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The number of people vaccinated will increase as the number of vaccine doses becomes available.
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General practitioners will be able to start collecting doses of the
AstraZeneca
vaccine
, AZD 1222, from pharmacies between February 22 and 24, so that they can start vaccinating from February 25.
Next week, doctors will have one vial, so ten doses of vaccine, two to three vials the following week, then up to four vials the following weeks.
People eligible for vaccination are patients aged 50 to 64 with co-morbidities including high blood pressure, organ transplantation, heart failure, type 1 or 2 diabetes, or cancer under three years of age. whose chemotherapy has ended.
The vaccination is done in two doses and it is imperative to inject the second dose between 9 and 12 weeks after the first.
To organize appointments, the Doctolib platform, used by 18,000 doctors in France, announced the launch of the Doctolib vaccination service, available for doctors and patients, from February 24.
►
See also: Covid-19: no re-containment in France, but an acceleration of the vaccination rate
Pharmacists want to vaccinate themselves
Pharmacists, from whom doctors will have to obtain the doses of vaccines, warn about the small number of doctors who have ordered their doses and are asking more than ever for authorization to vaccinate the patients themselves.
Doctors have until Wednesday evening, February 17 to order their dose of vaccine from their referral pharmacist, but for Carine Wolf-Tahl, president of the National Council of Pharmacists, this mandatory pre-order complicates the vaccination process.
“
The profession had instead proposed that there be an equal number of bottles sent to all pharmacies,
” she underlines.
This is called a pushed flow, that is to say that there is no command to make.
This avoided this registration and ordering step.
It is all the more unfortunate that it will not change much, there will always be only one bottle available per doctor
”.
Because the state will make available to 65,000 city doctors 70,000 vials of vaccine, in other words, doctors will
not be
able
to order as many as they want
.
Carine Wolf Tahl therefore pleads for a vaccination directly in pharmacies.
"
Building on the success of influenza vaccination - there have been a third of vaccinated by pharmacists - we can, I hope now, very quickly begin to vaccinate,
" she said.
And that as soon as the vials are available that they are actually injected in advance
”.
Pharmacists are asking the government to authorize them as soon as possible to vaccinate, initially with doses that will not be ordered by doctors.
► Read also: France: pharmacists are preparing to vaccinate against Covid-19
In France, a drop in cases which may hide a rebound
The figures for the Covid-19 epidemic have stagnated for a few days in France, but the English variant continues to progress in the country.
We are currently witnessing a slight decrease in new cases as well as the number of hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care.
But this upturn may be hiding a rebound in the pandemic, fear researchers from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm).
Using a mathematical model, Inserm scientists made projections of the epidemic situation based on hospital admission figures and current knowledge of Covid-19.
According to their findings, the current stagnation of coronavirus cases could hide an epidemic rebound in the coming weeks.
Indeed, if the number of contaminations with the classic virus is down slightly, the English variant continues to spread in the country and represents 35% of diagnosed cases.
And as the English variant is 40 to 70% more contagious, its rapid spread throughout the country raises fears of less optimistic scenarios.
One of the least pessimistic projections from Inserm models is an explosion of cases of the English variant in the country.
►
Read also: Covid-19: variants are still causing more concern in France
According to the study, the British variant could become dominant in the territory between late February and mid-March.
And if so, the number of hospital admissions could reach more than 25,000 the week of March 22.
Even if the global epidemic is on the decline, the proliferation of variants in the country should make us redouble our vigilance, and take more stringent measures to curb the spread of the English variant, particularly already present in Moselle and in the North.
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On the same subject
Covid-19: no re-containment in France, but an acceleration of the vaccination rate
France: pharmacists prepare to vaccinate against Covid-19
Covid-19: variants still cause more concern in France