The new vaccination campaign against flu and Covid-19 begins in a week in France.
It targets in particular the populations most at risk, seniors or vulnerable people in particular.
Here’s everything you need to know.
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Covid-19: the challenge of vaccination
This is a highly recommended fall event for populations most at risk. The vaccination campaign against influenza but also Covid opens on October 15 for the 2024-2025 winter season in mainland France, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana. It has already started on September 10, 2024 in Mayotte.
Although, since May 2023, the World Health Organization no longer considers the pandemic a global health emergency, it regularly reminds that SARS-CoV-2 “continues to circulate and evolve.” Over time and waves, the impact of Covid on hospitalizations and deaths has greatly diminished thanks to the high level of immunity acquired through vaccination and infections. But it is not zero, and the risk of a more dangerous variant remains.
Who is affected?
The new flu vaccination campaign will target in particular French people aged 65 and over as well as people at risk of serious illness. In detail, the target is patients under 65 suffering from certain chronic illnesses (including children from the age of 6 months), pregnant women, the family circle of infants under 6 months, people suffering from asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, people suffering from obesity, those staying in a follow-up care establishment or in a medico-social accommodation establishment, and children or adolescents from 6 months to 18 years following prolonged treatment by acetylsalicylic acid.
“For vaccination against Covid-19, patients with dementia or Down syndrome are added to this list”, can we read on the government website.
Where to get vaccinated?
As in the previous season, the campaigns are carried out jointly. The High Authority for Health judges that the co-administration of the two vaccines can help strengthen vaccination coverage of the general population. Quite simply because it avoids having to travel twice. If you are affected by both vaccinations, it is therefore possible to carry them out at the same time.
It will be possible to receive the injection in town, by a doctor, a pharmacist, but also a nurse, a midwife, or even a dentist.
With which vaccines?
If vaccines lose effectiveness over time against infections, they remain very protective against serious forms, insist the health authorities.
The Covid vaccine injected during this campaign will be Comirnaty JN.1 from Pfizer/BioNTech, a messenger RNA vaccine adapted to the variants currently in circulation.
What support?
In terms of vaccination against Covid, the injection is free for patients, because it is covered by Health Insurance.
Regarding the flu vaccine, patients targeted as priority people in principle benefit from 100% coverage by Health Insurance. The vaccine is given to them in pharmacies upon simple presentation of the voucher sent by Health Insurance and the vital card. People considered to be non-priority can also be vaccinated, if they wish, by collecting their vaccine from a pharmacy, without a medical prescription. The flu vaccine, however, is not fully covered by Health Insurance in this case.
Where is viral circulation?
Under the effect of the start of the school year and the drop in temperatures, the intensification of the circulation of Covid “seems to be starting” in France, Public Health France noted on September 25, while all indicators were progressing, pointing to a more marked increase among seniors.
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A week later, on October 2, the indicators published by Public Health France (SPF) painted a more contrasting picture. If data from community medicine and hospitals confirm a stabilization of the epidemic, the level of circulation of the virus in wastewater has continued to increase.
