According to the High Authority for Health (HAS), 44,000 infants aged 3 to 18 months did not receive all the doses of their vaccines during confinement. She calls for the urgent resumption of vaccinations.
- The High Authority of Health calls on the French to resume the vaccination of children and fragile people, undermined by the confinement and the Covid-19 epidemic.
“We must now, without delay, resume all vaccinations and reassure the population.” This is the message that the High Authority for Health (HAS) wishes to convey. In a statement dated this Tuesday, June 16, the health authority called for the recovery “emergency” vaccinations of infants as well as “adults who have chronic illnesses, particular frailties”after their drastic fall during confinement and the Covid-19 epidemic. “It is a double concern”said infectious disease specialist Élisabeth Bouvet, president of the HAS technical commission for vaccinations.
According to the health authority, 44,000 infants aged 3 to 18 months did not receive their doses of vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, whooping cough, meningitis and hepatitis B during the eight weeks of confinement. In total, 90,000 vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) need to be caught up, as well as 123,000 MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccines and 450,000 tetanus vaccines intended for booster shots of children (excluding infants), adolescents and adults, details the 3and Epi-Phare report.
A sharp decline in vaccination coverage
Already at the beginning of April, while the confinement was not over, the HAS had expressed its concern about the collapse in the number of vaccines carried out during the Covid-19 epidemic and recommended maintain all mandatory infant vaccinations.
According to the Epi-Phare report made public on Friday March 12, “there was a collapse in consumption over the entire initial period of confinement from -35% to -71% for vaccines”. For Professor Bouvet, quoted by The Expressthis decrease in vaccination coverage is all the more worrying as it concerns very young children, from 0 to 2 years old, as well as “adults who have chronic illnesses, particular frailties”.
The High Authority for Health invites now “people who had to postpone their vaccinations or those of their children and infantsto consult their doctor or pediatrician as soon as possible.”
She also recalls that the extension of the time between two injections “does not affect the quality of the immune response” and that he “it is not necessary to resume an interrupted vaccination schedule from the start”.
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