In two months, four people were infected with meningococci B in the Beaujolais region. A vaccination campaign has just been launched.
The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (ARS) regional health agency has just launched a vast vaccination campaign against meningitis. Between February 29 and March 19, four people were infected in the Beaujolais region. The vaccination campaign aims to prevent any spread of the epidemic. It targets 12 municipalities. Free, it has just been set up in schools and in centers provided for this purpose.
Four diagnosed cases
Within a month, four people were diagnosed with meningococcal strain B by health authorities. They are two 17-year-old teenagers and two girls from the same kindergarten class. Three of them are now cured but the fourth is still hospitalized in serious condition; its vital prognosis is not however engaged. Last October, a 21-year-old student from Lyon was killed following a meningococcal B infection in Lyon.
4,330 people involved
Targeting twelve Beaujolais municipalities in total, this vast vaccination operation concerns 4,330 people, aged between two months and 24 years (vaccination is not effective on older people). The latter is not compulsory but strongly advised by the health authorities of the region, who fear a worsening of the epidemic. As underlined by Doctor Anne-Marie Durand, interviewed by the newspaper Lyonmag, “This strain of meningococcus B is rare, therefore to be contained as soon as possible”.
Among these municipalities concerned, that of Saint-Etienne-les-Ouillières has already undertaken the vaccination operation. 128 children were vaccinated there. A few kilometers away, 130 other schoolchildren were also vaccinated in Charentais.
The vaccination campaign will end before the start of summer, the date has not been specified.
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