There were only a few days left to decide. The 533,302 people under the age of 55 who received a first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine between Saturday February 6 and Saturday March 13 are expected to receive their second injection with a messenger RNA vaccine, i.e. a vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna. And this with an interval of twelve weeks, as initially planned. This is what the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommends, in an opinion released on Friday April 9.
The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, estimated on RTL that this recommendation was “Totally logical”, stressing that this was a precautionary measure which is not final and could evolve depending on new data. On March 15, the suspension of the Anglo-Swedish firm’s vaccine was announced by Emmanuel Macron following the chain of similar decisions in several European countries, after the occurrence of cases of serious thromboembolic events in vaccinated people.
For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated on Friday that there was no “Adequate data to tell if this is something that can be done”. WHO experts therefore concluded “That the interchangeability of vaccines does not[était] not something they could recommend at this point ”.
If the administration of the vaccine resumed in France a few days later, in accordance with the favorable conclusions of the European Medicines Agency, the French health authority recommended, in its opinion of 19 March, reserve the vaccine for people over 55 years old. So what about the youngest, already involved in the process with the AstraZeneca product? The question was becoming urgent, as the first appointments for the injection of a second dose of AstraZeneca are scheduled from mid-April.
This second injection primarily concerns caregivers, to whom access to the AstraZeneca vaccine was opened on February 6 in vaccination centers. “It was a decision eagerly awaited by health professionals, they question us daily, underlines Jacques Battistoni, president of MG France, the leading union among general practitioners. These 30-year-old, 40-year-old caregivers who received a first dose of AstraZeneca want to know how they are going to recall. “
For the general public: “We have vaccinated a limited number of our patients aged 50 to 54”, underlines Jacques Battistoni. The arrival of the AstraZeneca vaccine in town offices on February 25 first affected people with co-morbidities aged 50 to 64 (and later), but doctors often started with their most frequent patients. older people in this age group, age being one of the main risk factors.
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