The pharmacists of Hauts-de-France and Occitanie will join those of New Aquitaine and Auvergne Rhône-Alpes to vaccinate you. These are now the 4 regions where an experiment is being carried out and in which certain pharmacists are authorized to vaccinate patients against seasonal flu. Explanations.
Some pharmacists in Hauts-de-France and Occitanie have been authorized to vaccinate you since October 6. If the experiment is conclusive, the government hopes to be able to extend this measure to all French pharmacies in 2020, or even from autumn 2019. This is an extension of the experiment on the fight against influenza to 2 additional regions and one more category: pregnant women.
Pharmacists who can provide this vaccination have been previously trained in the vaccination procedure. Vaccination must of course be done in a room separate from the counseling area. The pharmacist must take note of the person’s medical history and must stay with them for 15 to 30 minutes after the vaccination to ensure that they do not experience any adverse reactions to the vaccination, such as an allergy. It is therefore not all the pharmacists in these regions who carry out the vaccination.
Increase the fight against the flu
The flu epidemic affects between 2 and 6 million people in mainland France each year and last year it killed 17,000 people, 93% of whom were aged 65 or over. This is a record figure linked to the length of the epidemic when vaccination was rather effective and it protects well against complicated forms of the disease (the frequency of hospitalizations is divided by 2 in vaccinated people).
The objective of this measure is to encourage patients, and especially those most at risk, to be vaccinated, as well as to simplify the vaccination course. It is a question of seeking out people who never get vaccinated and, in particular, people at risk. However, these people are often at risk because they are sick and, if they regularly go to see their doctor, they go even more often to see their pharmacists to renew their prescription (every month). So there are more opportunities to vaccinate them with all the equipment on site.
A success last year
Currently, seasonal flu vaccination coverage is below 50% for the population at risk. The will of the government is to go to 75%. The countries with the best vaccination coverage are those where all health professionals are authorized to vaccinate.
Last year, in only 2 regions, in New Aquitaine and Auvergne Rhône-Alpes, 156,479 people were vaccinated against influenza in pharmacies, four times more than the announced objective. This year, Hauts-de-France and Occitanie are offering patients the possibility of being vaccinated in pharmacies by trained pharmacists.
The geographic expansion proposed this year is accompanied by an expansion of the target of people to be protected, since first-time recipients and pregnant women, initially excluded from this measure, can now be vaccinated in pharmacies.
Free vaccination for people at risk
Vaccination will be free for people at risk in order to encourage them to get vaccinated, i.e. people aged 65 and over, as well as those with chronic diseases, pregnant women, people suffering from obesity and the family environment of infants under 6 months who are at risk of severe influenza. For other people, it will cost between 4 and 6 euros.
The national seasonal flu vaccination campaign, which began on October 6, will continue until January 31. It incorporates tetravalent vaccines, that is to say vaccines directed against 4 strains of virus which are currently in circulation according to the World Health Organization. In accordance with its recommendations, the 2018 influenza vaccine contains the following viruses :
• A/Michigan/45/2015 (H1N1) pdm09 type virus;
• A/Singapore/INFIMH-16-0019/2016 type virus (H3N2);
• A B/Colorado/06/2017 type virus (B/Victoria/2/87 lineage);
• A B/Phuket/3073/2013 type virus (B/Yamagata/16/88 lineage).
The first 3 strains are viral strains recommended for use in trivalent influenza vaccines, and the last is an additional viral strain recommended for use in tetravalent influenza vaccines.
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