The general secretariat of Catholic education recommends to Catholic colleges under contract to “suspend” the vaccination campaign against the papillomavirus, for “precautionary reasons” after the death of a schoolboy, victim of a fall following post-disease -vaccine, he said on Tuesday. “We are not opposed to vaccination, but a dramatic event happened, and it seems to me that both out of respect for the family but also invoking the reason of precaution, it “It is necessary to suspend this vaccination,” Philippe Delorme, head of the secretariat, told AFP.
The ARS excludes any link between the vaccine and the malaise
A few days before the autumn school holidays, a 5th grade student from Saint-Dominique college in Saint-Herblain near Nantes (Loire-Atlantique) had a heavy fall which caused a head trauma, following a malaise that occurred 15 minutes after vaccination against the papillomavirus within its establishment, indicated the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Pays de la Loire. The ARS, which excludes any link between the vaccine and the illness, announced the death of the teenager on October 27. The Agency has launched an investigation, the results of which are expected on November 8. For its part, the Nantes public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into manslaughter.
Philippe Delorme says he is waiting for “the results of the investigations” and calls on the Minister of Health and the ARS for more means of “supervision”, so that “the vaccination conditions guarantee 100% that this tragedy can never happen again” . He wants more dedicated staff “to better monitor and support students likely to have vagal discomfort”, he told AFP. “Vagal discomfort is the first risk in any vaccination. It is the fear of the needle, there is no link with the injected product. It is a vaccine that we know very well” , declared Tuesday morning on RTL the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau, who “thinks of the family, of their pain, of their sadness and undoubtedly their anger”.
Vaccination in this Loire-Atlantique college was carried out by “the teams from the Nantes university hospital center”, specified the minister. Following this accident, the vaccination campaign was suspended in Loire-Atlantique. It will resume at the start of the school year on November 6, the ARS said on Monday. The campaign to vaccinate middle school students in 5th grade against human papillomavirus (HPV), the cause of many cancers such as cervical cancer, was launched at the beginning of October in France. It is not obligatory.