The vaccination campaign against monkeypox is accelerating in France. More than 14,000 people have received at least one injection of the Imvanex vaccine, produced by the Danish laboratory Bavarian Nordic, Health Minister François Braun announced on Tuesday August 2. This figure doubled in one week, in particular thanks to the opening of a dedicated vaccination center in the 13e district of Paris, with a target of 2,000 injections per week. A similar center should open very soon in Marseille, according to the minister.
“We will vaccinate anyone who wants it,” wanted to reassure Mr. Braun on Tuesday before parliamentarians, while the health authorities are the target of much criticism because of the very slow start of the vaccine campaign. “We have enough vaccines to vaccinate the entire target population, estimated at 250,000 people according to the Haute Autorité de santé”, he added, reiterating that 42,000 doses have been delivered to the centres.
But many testimonies still report difficulties in obtaining appointments, despite the 136 centers offering vaccination against monkeypox. The minister assured to seek “all ways and [tous les] ways to reduce the time to access the vaccine, especially in areas where demand is high, such as Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Ile-de-France”.
“Transparency” required
A week after the publication of the decree allowing health students as well as retired doctors and nurses to participate in the vaccination, the authorities are still looking for additional hands. The minister said he was working “to setting up an experiment with pharmacists”.
In addition, PCR tests for diagnosing monkeypox have been included in the nomenclature of biology procedures, which concretely means that medical biology laboratories other than national reference centers and university hospitals will be able, in the short term , also provide this analysis. An important step to increase diagnostic capacity in France.
On Tuesday, political figures, association representatives and citizens asked, in a column published in the online media Huffington Post, the opening of a senatorial commission of inquiry into the management of this epidemic by the government. The signatories demand “transparency” and the end of “secret about government strategy”, and particularly criticize the “undersizing” of the campaign as well as “the absence of transparent information [sur] the number of vaccines available or at least that will be made available, on future orders, on their date of availability”.
Among the authors of the platform are the deputies Sandrine Rousseau and Danielle Simonnet (Nupes), the first deputy mayor of Marseille Michèle Rubirola (EELV), and the presidents of the associations Aides, Act Up-Paris and Médecins du monde.