The General Directorate of Health authorizes city doctors to vaccinate their patients at risk, aged 50 to 64, using the AstraZeneca product. At the same time, hospitals interrupt the vaccination of their staff, following significant side effects after the injection of this vaccine.
- General practitioners will be able to vaccinate vulnerable people aged 50 to 65 from February 25
- These vaccinations will be done with the product of AstraZeneca
- Several hospitals have suspended the vaccination of their caregivers with this product due to side effects
People aged 50 to 64 suffering from cancer, diabetes, obesity or a respiratory disease will be able to be vaccinated from February 25, at their general practitioner, with the AstraZeneca product. The Directorate General for Health announced this in a document, published Friday, February 12. Doctors must first identify the patients concerned, then make a request for vaccines in a pharmacy. 700,000 doses are expected in the next few days.
How will this vaccination be organised?
“The volumes of the first deliveries intended for city doctors are low, specify the text. As a result, each doctor will have a single bottle available for the first delivery (week of February 22), and a maximum of 2 or 3 bottles for the second delivery (week of March 1) depending on consumption and the number of doses delivered.“For information, each bottle contains 10 doses of vaccine. The supply should be greater from March. To manage these reduced stocks, the General Directorate of Health offers two protocols to general practitioners: organize all vaccinations at within six hours of removing the vial, preferably in the morning If doctors have a refrigerator, then they can schedule vaccinations over a 48-hour period After the injection, doctors should monitor their patient for a minimum of fifteen minutes”to detect the occurrence of an anaphylactic reaction following administration of the vaccine“.
Side effects experienced by caregivers
This allergic reaction is one of the side effects of the Covid-19 vaccine. But for several days, vaccinated people, among the nursing staff, have been suffering from other symptoms linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine: fever, headaches, flu-like symptoms. As reported in an article by Telegram, 20 to 25% of vaccinated people were forced to request a work stoppage in the hospitals of Brest and Quimper. In several hospitals, this led to the temporary suspension of vaccination, such as in Saint-Lô or Morlaix. I’National Medicines Safety Agency identified 149 flu-like symptoms among people vaccinated between February 6 and 10. The average age of people affected by these side effects is 34 years. “We know that in the 48 hours following a vaccination we can have reactions of this type, flu syndromeindicated Alain Fischer, president of the Council of orientation of the vaccine strategy on France Info. What is a little surprising is that apparently, things have to be analyzed, there seems to be a little more than expected.“The ANSM specifies that the batch which was used for these vaccinations was used in 21 other European countries. In these, there were no similar side effects identified. The agency recommends “staggered vaccination of the staff of the same department” and to use “paracetamol at the lowest dose and for the shortest possible time” in case of fever.
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