2024-03-27 15:57:53
27 mars 2024
The year 2023 was marked by an outbreak of invasive meningococcal infections, serious diseases associated with significant mortality. Consequently, the High Authority for Health recommends reviewing the vaccination strategy. She calls for compulsory vaccination of infants under one year of age and recommends it for adolescents.
Soon infant vaccination will be mandatory to prevent the spread of invasive meningococcal infections (IIM)? This is what the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommends in an opinion published on March 27. 560 cases of invasive meningococcal infections were recorded in 2023, a jump of 72% compared to 2022. Figures higher than those seen before the Covid years, while IIM cases fell in 2020 and 2021 thanks respecting barrier gestures and confinements.
Fatal infections in 1 in 10 cases
IIMs are caused by bacteria, meningococci. 12 families (serogroups) have been described to date. Serogroups A, B, C, W and Y are involved in almost all invasive meningococcal infections diagnosed in France. “IIM most often manifest in the form of meningitis (inflammation of the membranes that envelop the brain and spinal cord) and/or septicemia (blood infection, editor’s note)”, explains Public Health France. Other clinical forms exist such as arthritis, septic pericarditis, or purpura fulminans (the combination of septic shock and purpura).
These infections are uncommon but fatal in approximately one in ten cases, despite antibiotic therapy. Severe, IIM particularly affects children under 5 years old, adolescents and young adults aged 11 to 24.
Strong progression of serogroup W, very virulent
According to the latest data, serogroup B remains in the majority in France but serogroups W (2.5 times more compared to 2022) and Y (1.7 times more compared to 2022) have progressed significantly, particularly among infants and children. youth. Serogroup W strains are very virulent and cause mortality twice as high as serogroups B and Y, adds the HAS.
Requested by the Ministry of Health, the HAS therefore reviewed the vaccination strategy and made several recommendations:
Vaccination against serogroups A, C, W and Z: compulsory for all infants under one year of age, replacing vaccination directed only against serogroup C (compulsory since January 1, 2018), according to a two-dose vaccination schedule. For adolescents, the HAS recommends vaccination according to a one-dose schedule administered between 11 and 14 years of age, whether they have already been vaccinated or not, as well as a catch-up vaccination in 15-24 year olds.
Vaccination against serogroup B: obligatory in infants less than one year old. It has already been recommended for infants since 2021. Adolescents are, this time, not affected.
Serogroup B is the primary cause of meningococcal meningitis in young children. The objective is to increase vaccination coverage, which was around 48.8% in 2022.
Source: High Authority for Health, Public Health France
Written by: Dorothée Duchemin – Edited by Vincent Roche
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