The bronchiolitis epidemic continued to grow in France last week, Santé Publique France said on Wednesday in its weekly bulletin. The indicators are increasing in town and in hospitals. Five regions are now in pre-epidemic and seven in epidemic. Bronchiolitis particularly affects infants, in whom it causes an annual epidemic in winter.
The regions entering the bronchiolitis epidemic phase are: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Brittany, Centre-Val de Loire, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. These regions join Île-de-France and Hauts-de-France which were already affected. Five regions: Burgundy-Franche-Comté, Grand Est, Normandy, New Aquitaine, Pays de la Loirefor their part pass into the pre-epidemic phase.
Two preventive treatments this year
What's new this season is the deployment of two preventive treatments: The Beyfortus d'AstraZeneca and Sanofi, an antibody given directly to babies, and l'Abrysvo by Pfizera vaccine administered before birth to pregnant women. Beyfortus had already been the subject of an immunization campaign last year and studies agree that it limited the hospitalization of babies in France and in other countries where it was tested.
But on November 20, the main organizations of French pediatricians, regretted that the Beyfortus was not reimbursed enoughwhich, they say, pushes many parents to give it up. “The decision to limit reimbursement appears incomprehensible and inadmissible,” they say in a press release.
Beyfortus had already been offered to many infants last year, where the costs were covered by the State which had directly purchased doses from the laboratories. But this year, the treatment is moving to more traditional reimbursement, via Health Insurance. It only reimburses 30%, the rest being the responsibility of mutual insurance companies. “Many families are unable to pay the remaining co-payment, around 300 euros.“, emphasize the pediatricians. Because several mutual insurance companies do not reimburse it or only partially.
The flu starts slowly
For its part, the flu epidemic is starting slowly, said Santé Publique France on Wednesday in its weekly bulletin. But the indicators remained at “their base level” in the majority of regions last week.with the exception of the Île-de-France regions (already passed into pre-epidemic), Hauts-de-France and Normandy (passed into pre-epidemic this week).
COVID-19 indicators remain stable in town and in hospitals, and for all age groups. A vaccination campaign against flu and Covid began in mid-October for people at risk, but also for their entourage and caregivers.
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