Anti-discrimination associations LGBT+ call on the government on Friday to speed up vaccination against monkey pox so that the entire target audience is protected before the end of September, judging that we are currently “far from the mark”.
“At the current rate, all eligible people” will be vaccinated only “at the end of December, and with a single dose”, declare in a press release these associations, including Act-Up Paris, AIDES, Sidaction and the union of sex workers STRASS, mobilized in the prevention of this disease since the beginning of the epidemic. The epidemic will then be “out of control”, they add.
End of summer goal
To avoid such a scenario, “all the target people must be vaccinated by the end of the summer (…) or within the next six weeks”, which would amount to vaccinating “at least 37,000 people per week”, explain the associations. “We are very far from the mark”, they estimate, specifying that “about 15,000 people per week” are currently vaccinated against smallpox.
The target audience is estimated at more than 250,000 people by the High Authority for Health. It corresponds in particular to the population of men having sex with other men and being multi-partnered.
Vaccination in extended pharmacies?
The associations wish, for example, to extend to the whole territory, as quickly as possible and “without waiting two weeks”, vaccination in pharmacies, tested since Wednesday in five pharmacies.
2,673 confirmed cases of monkeypox were recorded in France on Thursday, according to the report from Public Health France published on Friday. Regarding vaccinations, “more than 30,000” people have received a dose, Health Minister François Braun said on Wednesday. 182 vaccination centers have been opened on the territory.