If the 2024-2025 seasonal flu vaccination campaign got off to a bad start, the pharmacy gradually managed to make up for its delay compared to the previous year. According to figures from Iqvia, relayed today by the FSPF, 10.3 million doses have been delivered since October 15, 2024, the date of the launch of the 2024-2025 campaign. A figure up slightly compared to the 2023-2024 campaign which ended with 10.2 million doses delivered to pharmacies. Even better: the pharmacy network has administered 6.2 million doses since October 15, or 12% more than the previous season. During the month of November, 280,000 vaccines were administered in pharmacies, including 67,000 prescribed by pharmacy teams, or 20% of anti-flu vaccinations in pharmacies. “Proof that the profession has been able to demonstrate persuasion and effectively combat vaccine skepticism”believes Philippe Besset. For the president of the FSPF, this situation bodes well “ to make the pharmacist the promoter of vaccination in our country”, before recalling that this desire fully corroborates with that of the public authorities who granted the right to pharmacists to prescribe and administer vaccines with the precise aim of increasing vaccination coverage”.
Strengthen the role of the pharmacist, yes, but how?
At a time when pre-orders for influenza vaccines are opening for the 2025-2026 season, Philippe Besset therefore recommends to all his colleagues “to order an additional 10%”. Perhaps also to avoid the situation of recent days, marked by stocks seeming to be lacking in certain places, at the height of the epidemic. For the moment, it is impossible to draw up a precise picture and it seems that the stock level from one pharmacy to another is heterogeneous. Questioned on Tuesday January 7 on this subject, Emmanuel Déchin, general delegate of the Syndicate Chamber of Pharmaceutical Distribution (CERP), had not heard of a shortage among wholesalers-distributors, “even if they only have 10% of stocks of flu vaccines, because 90% of orders are placed directly with laboratories and almost a year in advance”, he declared. Same observation within Iqvia which still lists 600,000 doses in stock in pharmacies. Among Philippe Besset’s suggestions, authorize the retrocession of vaccines on an exceptional basis, offer support for influenza screening tests in the same way as Covid-19 screening tests, or even give pharmacists the right to prescribe and deliver Tamiflu to the most vulnerable people… A wish list just when the Bayrou government is launching into the budget battle to try to have a Social Security financing bill (PLFSS) adopted as soon as possible for 2025.
France
Health
