Covid-19: France gives the green light to three vaccines adapted to Omicron

Moderna and Pfizer Laboratories have developed updated versions that are more effective against circulating variants.

REUTERS - KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

After Europe, it is France which authorizes updates to vaccines against Covid-19, so-called bivalent vaccines.

They are adapted to the latest strains of the Coronavirus in circulation.

The High Health Authority therefore now recommends administering them from this fall to people over 60 or those most at risk of developing a serious form of Covid-19.

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These are not new vaccines, but adapted products.

While the first versions targeted the original strain of Sars-Cov-2, the so-called Wuhan strain, Moderna and Pfizer laboratories have developed updated versions that are more effective against circulating variants.

In concrete terms, this authorization concerns three different vaccines: the first two target, in addition to the original strain, the BA1 variant of

Omicron

.

The third targets the BA4 and BA5 variants, the latter currently being the majority.

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Covid-19: 2 new variants relaunch the epidemic

From this fall

The recommendations do not change: only people over 60 or those most at risk of developing a serious form can receive them, a public similar to that of the flu vaccine.

Quite logically, the HAS advises combining the two injections during the vaccination campaign this fall.

The framework being established, the logistical questions remain.

Most vaccination centers have closed and the recall campaign for these target people is struggling to take off.

Many said they were waiting for the availability of these bivalent vaccines to receive this 4th dose.

They are now there, to see if this will translate into the numbers.

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  • France

  • Health and medicine