France will set up a booster vaccine campaign against Covid-19 at the start of the school year by administering a third dose to people who received the first injections at the very beginning of the year, at the start of the vaccination campaign, announced on Thursday. August 5, Emmanuel Macron.

"We are preparing, like other European countries, to do this third dose for people who are the oldest and most fragile. And we will do it from the start of the school year," announced the Head of State in a statement. video posted on Instagram.

The president had already announced on July 12 the principle of a back-to-school recall campaign for the most vulnerable, as other countries are doing. 

The exact perimeter of people who will be offered a vaccine booster at the start of the school year should be the subject of arbitration "next week", the Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday.

Currently, the third dose is only recommended for people who are immunocompromised, such as those who have received a transplant.

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A moratorium on booster doses requested by the WHO

This announcement was made the day after a call from the WHO boss for a moratorium on booster doses of anti-Covid vaccines to be able to make these doses available to countries that have only been able to immunize a tiny part. of their population.

"We urgently need to turn things around: from a majority of vaccines going to rich countries to a majority going to poor countries," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that the moratorium should last "at least until the end of September ", during a WHO press briefing in Geneva.

The boss of the UN agency has denounced vaccine inequality for months.

As of Aug. 5, low-income countries have administered an average of just 1.7 doses of vaccine per 100 people, compared to 101 doses per 100 people in high-income countries, according to an AFP tally.

He was reacting to the fact that Germany and Israel announced campaigns for a third dose (for vaccines that require two initial doses) or "dose booster".

In May, Dr Tedros launched a challenge: to vaccinate 10% of the population in all countries of the world by September.

"To get there we need the cooperation of everyone, especially the handful of countries and companies that control global vaccine production," said Dr Tedros.

He called on pharmaceutical groups in particular to promote the Covax system, an international system set up to try to fight against vaccine inequality and in particular to help 92 poor countries to immunize their populations. 

For the time being, Covax is unable to fulfill its mission for lack of doses and has only been able to distribute a small fraction of what was initially planned.

Of the 4 billion such doses injected around the world, 80% went to high- and middle-income countries, while they represent less than 50% of the world's population.

Dr Bruce Aylward, in charge of Covax at the WHO, acknowledged that the end of September was an ambitious goal that may not be achieved.

With AFP and Reuters

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