The Covid 19 epidemic is on the rise again in Occitania. A new vaccination campaign is launched from this Monday, October 3 everywhere in France with new vaccines that target the Omicron variant. Those over 60, the most fragile, their entourage and caregivers are concerned.
“The Covid is on the rise again and the incidence rate has increased in particular since the start of the school year” detailed Catherine Choma, the director of public health at ARS Occitanie this Monday, October 3 on France Bleu and France 3 Occitanie.
Contaminations leave
For the past three weeks, contamination has increased again in France. If the incidence rate is progressing, there are still fewer serious forms, but the hospitalization figures remain stable. These data mainly concern the people most at risk.
We can see that with the recovery, the virus is circulating a lot. This is especially worrying for people who are likely to develop severe forms. Of course you have to learn to live with it. Starting this week, we are launching a new vaccination campaign for those most at risk. Those with comorbidities but also people over 60, immunocompromised people, pregnant women and health professionals.
Catherine Choma, Director of Public Health ARS Occitanie
To stem this possible 8th wave, the High Authority for Health recommends administering the booster doses of the new Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in priority to the most fragile.
New vaccination campaign for the most vulnerable
Residents of nursing homes and long-term care units, people aged 60 and over, immunocompromised people, pregnant women (from the 1st trimester of pregnancy), people with comorbidities (over 18 years old), those living in the entourage of all these categories as well as caregivers and health professionals must therefore be given priority.
Health professionals are in fact at the heart of this campaign: they are on the front line to answer the questions their patients have, check their eligibility for vaccination and provide them with complete and fair information on vaccination, its expected benefits and its risk of side effects.
New vaccines called “bivalent”
These new messenger RNA vaccines are called “bivalents”as they target subvariants of Omicron in addition to the original strain of the virus that causes Covid-19 disease.
It is a two-strain vaccine, i.e. the vaccine has the original Covid strain and includes the strain adapted to the Omicron variant. So yes, it is important that the people most vulnerable to Covid-19 get vaccinated now.
Catherine Choma, Director of Public Health ARS Occitanie
Concretely, Pfizer markets two vaccines. One targets the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants in addition to the original strain. The other targets the BA.1 sub-lineage in addition.
For its part, Moderna markets a single bivalent vaccine that targets this Omicron BA.1 sublineage. On the other hand, the Haute Autorité de santé recommends that people under 30 give preference to Pfizer vaccines.
When the new vaccines are not yet available, a booster dose is however strongly recommended for fragile people, including with monovalent vaccines.