During a questioning session to the government in the National Assembly on July 20, Olivier Véran assured that pregnancy was not a medical contraindication to vaccination.
In France, since April 3, 2021, from the 2nd trimester of pregnancy, pregnant women have priority for vaccination with an mRNA vaccine (Comirnaty from Pfizer BioNtech and Moderna laboratories). Tuesday, July 20, Olivier Véran went further by announcing that expectant mothers will be able to be vaccinated against covid-19 from the start of pregnancy, reports the Huff Post with AFP.
The Minister of Health shared a very short list of medical contraindications to vaccination. Apart from three situations, “Which potentially concern a few hundred French people, there is no contraindication to the messenger RNA vaccine” against the Covid, “Including pregnancy (in) the first trimester”, he explained during a questioning session to the government at the National Assembly.
According to Olivier Véran, here are the three medical contraindications:
- Suffering from PIMS syndrome: the pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome. This “extremely rare” complication has affected a few children and adolescents after contracting the coronavirus.
- “Reactions like myocarditis, pericarditis and severe hepatitis requiring hospitalization and following a first injection of mRNA vaccine”, he added.
- People who are allergic to any component of the vaccine.
This list was drawn up with the advice of the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM), the committee on the vaccination strategy of Alain Fischer and the scientific council, assured the minister.
No additional time for the health pass
From August, the health pass will extend to all public places of more than 50 people (against 1,000 currently), announced Emmanuel Macron. This means that you will have to present proof of vaccination, a negative test of less than 48 hours or a positive test attesting to the recovery from Covid-19 to access bars, restaurants, theaters or even cinema.
This measure represents an additional constraint for unvaccinated pregnant women who have to visit health facilities regularly. Especially since no relaxation has been announced for this specific case. Authorization to be vaccinated in the first trimester of pregnancy should nevertheless speed up their access to the health pass. As long as they want to.
Since the start of the covid-19 vaccination campaign, pregnant women have been reluctant to be vaccinated. In particular because they were not taken into account in the clinical trials of the serum, with a view to its authorization on the market. There is thus very little data on the danger that the vaccine against covid-19 could represent for the pregnancy and the development of the fetus. So far, however, no particular risk has been identified. Pregnant women vaccinated had the same side effects as the rest of the population, according to the ANSM.