The Covid-19 vaccination campaign began last December in nursing homes and long-term care units (USLD). Health professionals working in these establishments and presenting a risk of severe form have also been able to benefit from the vaccine. Vaccination was then extended to people aged 75 or over, then to people over 50 with co-morbidities. The latter can now be vaccinated at their general practitioner with AstraZeneca serum.
Despite these very specific instructions, some French people under the age of 50, who are neither health professionals nor suffering from co-morbidities, were however able to be vaccinated. How to explain this phenomenon ?
Covid-19: the question of vaccination criteria
Some health professionals explain that if some manage to slip through the cracks, it is mainly because of confusion about the vaccination criteria. "On Doctolib, the instructions are specified when making an appointment. A prescription is then in theory mandatory but the problem is that there is a certain vagueness in the criteria. This is not always clearly defined", indicates to Parisian Jonathan Favre, general practitioner in Villeneuve-d'Ascq (North).
As a reminder, in addition to the age criterion, a number of pathologies are considered a priority for vaccination against Covid-19. This list includes the people:
- with cancer and malignant haematological diseases during treatment with chemotherapy;
- with severe chronic kidney disease, including dialysis patients;
- transplanted solid organs;
- transplanted by allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation;
- suffering from chronic multiple pathologies and presenting at least two organ failure;
- suffering from certain rare diseases and particularly at risk in the event of infection;
- with Down's syndrome.
Willingness not to waste remaining vaccine doses
If non-priority people manage to get vaccinated against Covid-19, it is also to avoid waste. We know that general practitioners must order their doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in pharmacies and organize their appointments in advance so as to avoid losses. If they carry the vaccine doses at room temperature, they must administer the serum to their patients within 6 hours of withdrawal, and if they maintain the cold chain, they can schedule the vaccinations for 48 hours. A patient who cancels his appointment can therefore upset this organization.
This is the reason why low priority people would be offered vaccination. Sure RMC / BFMTV, Pierre, 34, received a call from his doctor: "It was his last dose, someone had canceled so it was either me or the trash so I was like 'why not'", he recounts.
Olivier Véran nevertheless recommends attributing this excess dose to vulnerable people: "You can trust people, whether they are doctors, pharmacists, nurses: when there is a dose in the vials, they find who to vaccinate, obviously preferably people who are in the target, but the golden rule is never to throw away vaccine when we can vaccinate someone ", explained the Minister of Health Thursday, March 4 during a press conference.
Vaccine against Covid-19: the limits of making an appointment online?
The administration of the anti-Covid vaccine to certain people who do not meet the vaccination criteria would also be due to the online appointment system. "There is no way to control it on the online registration platforms, because that would pose the problem of medical confidentiality. Everything is declarative", explains to HuffPost Luc Dusquenel, general practitioner and president of the Confederation of French medical unions (CSMF).
Once there, patients should normally provide proof that they meet the eligibility criteria for vaccination. But in reality, this verification would not be so obvious, as explained in HuffPost Anne-Laure Bonis, general practitioner and president of the MG France union. "We don't have time to do pedagogy once they are in front of us, the peeling should be done first. However, online platforms are not a suitable tool to do it.", she specifies.
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