France currently has five “proven” cases of monkey pox, Brigitte Bourguignon announced on Wednesday, May 25, adding that the country had the necessary stocks to vaccinate contact cases, as recommended by health authorities. The new Minister of Health detailed on RTL:
We are not expecting an outbreak of the disease, we are taking the necessary precautions, so vigilance in this case, and because it is a virus that we no longer saw in Europe. Recommendations have been made for identifying, detecting and then isolating.
As soon as “the recommendation” of health authorities on the vaccination of people in contact with the disease “is established”, “we are ready”.
“The stocks are there, we have strategic stocks and it will be targeted vaccination, we are not talking about total vaccination,” said Brigitte Bourguignon. “Beyond caregivers” in contact with a patient, these are “contact cases” in the patient’s entourage. In an opinion issued on Tuesday, the High Authority for Health had recommended the vaccination of adults, including health professionals, who had contact with a patient.
‘Small outbreak’ of Covid-19 expected in the fall
The Minister also specified that she would discuss, on Monday, with her European counterparts the “strategies that we are going to adopt” regarding this disease. “For now, the situation is under control, it’s under control,” she said.
About the Covid-19, “you will not hear me say that the pandemic is behind us”, even if “the hardest part is behind us”, underlined Ms. Bourguignon. She warned of a return or “small flare-up” of the Covid-19 epidemic in the fall and encouraged those over 60 to take the 2nd booster dose of the vaccine. “We ask the most fragile people to continue to have barrier gestures, to protect themselves, to get vaccinated. »
Vaccination of children under 5 will depend on health authorities, she added. On Monday, the Pfizer and BioNTech groups announced that their jointly developed vaccine was safe and effective for children aged 6 months to 5 years.
“It will be the health authorities who will tell us, or not” if it is desirable to vaccinate very young children, noted the minister. “We have always relied on scientific advice and, at the moment, that is not the case. »
