In an opinion published Friday, the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommended further reducing the time between two doses of the vaccine in order to speed up vaccination. It also calls for the mandatory vaccination of all professionals who come into contact with people at risk.
To stem the spread of the delta variant, the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) in turn recommends significantly accelerating the vaccination rate in France. For this purpose, it publishes a list of recommendations aimed at “adapting the vaccine strategy” against this infectious strain of the virus, while The government is now considering compulsory vaccination of caregivers.
Among these, the HAS recommends, for example, that consideration be given “without delay to the obligation of vaccination for all professionals who interact with people at risk”. The FDA also recommends reducing the interval between two doses of the vaccine to the minimum recommended time.
“The vaccination must continue at a high rate and be intensified in order to quickly ensure optimal vaccination coverage of the population, consistent with the continued lifting of restrictions and necessary to ensure the protection of the most vulnerable groups,” the SHA wrote in its published press release.
Preferred mRNA vaccines
In its press release, HAS notes that a “full vaccination schedule is necessary to ensure optimal efficacy of vaccination,” and that “unvaccinated persons contribute disproportionately to transmission of the virus,” because an unvaccinated person has a 12 times greater likelihood of transmitting the virus than a vaccinated person.
In order to reduce this risk, health authorities recommend that people starting the vaccination process “prefer the use of mRNA vaccines with an interval of 3 to 4 weeks between the two doses,” ie, Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna, “the best level of efficacy for preventing not only serious and accidental forms but Also against the transmission of the virus.
For people over 55 years of age who have so far only received one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the SHA recommends “preferring the use of the mRNA vaccine in the second dose” starting 4 weeks after the first.
In its opinion released earlier on Friday, the Scientific Council recommended “make vaccination mandatory for caregivers”. The Council expressed its concern about the vaccination coverage rate, which is still “too low, among medical and social workers who deal with the elderly and/or disabled in nursing homes, specialized institutions or in the city,” stressing that “only 40 percent of workers In nursing homes, public or private, they will be vaccinated with great regional variation.”