After having been forgotten in the first phase of the vaccine campaign against Covid-19, are people with obesity falling behind in the great national momentum in favor of injection? According to latest figures released by the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM), only 47.6% of them had received their first dose by May 23, more than the national average (39.1% in 1er June), but far behind people with other high-risk conditions, such as patients with heart failure (67.5% of whom received a dose), diabetes (66.2%) or chronic respiratory diseases (59%). Thus, according to Medicare, the vaccination rate of people with obesity “Remains low with regard to the risks”.
From the start of the pandemic, the latter were identified as particularly fragile with regard to Covid-19. In intensive care units in France, they represent nearly one in two patients and studies have multiplied on the link between obesity and the risk of developing a serious form after infection. But vaccination was not opened to all adults with a body mass index above 30 until late, in early May.
The situation is all the more worrying as the data from the CNAM are only a partial reflection of the general situation of people with obesity: the figures, which come from the databases of the Health Insurance, only relate to those taken. in charge by a health establishment for their obesity – followed in consultation or day hospital or for a bariatric surgery operation, for example. This assessment covers 860,000 people, including 450,000 unvaccinated, when obesity affects 7 to 8 million French people. “The fact that one in two people who have not yet been vaccinated among this category of people is a worrying signal, we note at the National Health Insurance Fund, because what we have in our data is restrictive compared to the more general population of people suffering from obesity. “
This statistical difficulty is explained in particular by the absence of official recognition by France of obesity as a disease (although the World Health Organization has defined it as a chronic pathology since 1997). Difficult to track by Medicare, it becomes, according to patient associations, invisible.
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