SAnté publique France unveiled its weekly report on the state of the Covid-19 pandemic in France on Thursday, based on data from health authorities. The news is rather good: the last wave of Covid-19, which began at the start of the school year in September, is ebbing. A reflux which, however, tends to slow down, points to Public Health France, which indicates in particular that the positivity rate from antigenic tests was on the rise in the last week.
Last week, ” the circulation of Sars-CoV-2 continued to slow, but with an increasing trend in the rate of positivity from antigen tests » in mainland France after a downward trend the previous two weeks, summarized the French agency. The incidence rate also continued to decline, but ” much less markedly » than previously, said SPF, whose calculations were based on antigen tests alone because the biologists’ strike affected the file of PCR test results until last Tuesday.
New hospitalizations and the number of deaths also continued to decline. The number of Covid patients in critical care thus fell below the symbolic threshold of 1,000 on Wednesday.
A booster dose recommended for people at risk
Started at the beginning of September, the current wave of Covid has been calming down since the end of October. This wave remains carried by the Omicron variant of the virus, whose BA.5 version remains ubiquitous. As the circulation of the virus remains ” active » and that the winter period is approaching, the public health agency calls again to strengthen vaccination, in particular of those most at risk of serious forms of Covid, in particular with a vaccine also adapted to the Omicron variant.
For the over 60s, adults at risk (comorbidities, pregnant women, etc.), caregivers, four vaccines ” bivalent » adapted to Omicron are recommended regardless for an additional dose this fall. The High Authority for Health on Wednesday gave the green light to the fourth, Spikevax, manufactured by Moderna and adapted to the BA.4 and BA.5 strains of the virus.
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Until then, the fall recall campaign is struggling to take off. Only 39.9% of people aged 60-79 and 52.6% of people aged 80 and over among eligible people had received a second reminder by November 7, noted Public Health France.
Besides vaccination, ” barrier gestures, including wearing a mask, remain essential »particularly in the presence of people at risk of complications, in the event of promiscuity in closed spaces (transport, etc.), during large gatherings, hammered the health agency.
Green light for Sanofi booster shot
The European regulator gave the green light on Thursday to the booster vaccine against Covid-19 developed by the French laboratory Sanofi and the British GlaxoSmithKline, which gave positive results against the Omicron variant in clinical trials. Serum endorsement ” new generation » by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is a boost for Sanofi and GSK, which have fallen behind their rivals in the supply of a vaccine.
VidPrevtyn Beta serum could be used as a booster dose in adults previously immunized with injections of mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna, or virus-vectored vaccines made by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, the EMA said. ” A booster dose of VidPrevtyn Beta should be at least as effective as Comirnaty (from Pfizer) in restoring protection against Covid-19 »the EMA said in a statement.
A trial in 162 adults who received the booster dose showed that Sanofi-GSK’s vaccine elicited higher production of antibodies against Omicron’s BA.1 subvariant than Pfizer’s original vaccine, EMA says . A second study restored immunity in 627 adults who had received other vaccines for their first round of injections.
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Sanofi and GSK developed the vaccine ” new generation » at the same time as they await regulatory approval for their first-generation vaccine. This vaccine combines an antigen developed by Sanofi, which stimulates the production of germ-killing antibodies, with GSK’s adjuvant technology, a substance which reinforces the immune response triggered by a vaccine.
The French laboratory said it was ready to start its first shipments of the booster vaccine. ” Today’s approval validates our research to develop a new solution to the Covid-19 pandemic »said Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president for vaccines at Sanofi, quoted in a press release.
The risk of repeated infections
People who have had Covid more than once are more likely to have a series of serious health problems than those who have had it only once, the first major study on the subject revealed on Thursday. Repeat infections increased as the virus mutated, but the long-term health effects of these reinfections remained unclear until then. A new study published Thursday in the journal NatureMedicine examines for the first time how reinfection increases the risk of health problems and long Covid.
The US researchers analyzed the anonymous medical records of 5.8 million people in the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Health Care Database. More than 443,000 people tested positive for Covid at least once between 1er March 2020 and April 2022. Among them, 41,000 had Covid more than once. In detail, more than 93% had a total of two infections, while 6% had three and almost 1% had four. The remaining 5.3 million have never contracted Covid.
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When the researchers compared the health outcomes of the different groups, they found that ” people who were re-infected had an increased risk of all sorts of unwanted health problems », Ziyad Al-Aly, an epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis and lead author of the study, told AFP. Heart and lung problems, for example, were more than three times more common among people who had been reinfected. Reinfection also promoted brain disease, kidney disease and diabetes, according to the study.
The authors, however, acknowledged some biases in their study, including the fact that it mostly involved white, older men.