Upcoming Covid-19 Vaccination Campaign: Ministry of Health's Early Initiative to Combat the Spread

2023-09-19 12:56:15

Cover image: Mark J. Terrill / AP

Faced with an increase in the circulation of the virus, the Ministry of Health has decided to bring forward the vaccination campaign against Covid-19 by two weeks, to October 2. Targeting the most vulnerable people as a priority, it was initially supposed to be carried out at the same time as that of the flu, from October 17.

“We think that the incidence has increased by around thirty percent since last week, this must be taken with great caution but the virus is circulating, each of us can see cases around us”justified the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau. “This is not to sound the alarm, but as the epidemic is here we are highlighting vaccines which are effective for the most vulnerable people”he underlined Aurélien, also insisting on the necessary continuation of barrier gestures such as washing hands and wearing a mask.

Although, since the beginning of May, the World Health Organization (WHO) no longer considers Covid-19 a global health emergency, the virus continues to circulate in all countries, and new strains continue to emerge.

The new variant of Covid-19, BA.2.86, carefully monitored by the WHO, was detected for the first time in France at the end of August. This member of the Omicron family is highly scrutinized due to a “largest number of mutations”making it “likely to evolve more significantly and spread more easily”according to the Committee for Monitoring and Anticipation of Health Risks (Covars).

The European Commission authorized Moderna’s vaccine on September 15, updated to target a very common sub-variant of Covid-19 as winter approaches, after having already given the green light to the updated version of the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech.