Kick-off of the annual flu vaccination, coupled with Covid

The start of vaccination against seasonal flu this Tuesday, October 15, possibly combined with a booster against Covid: the health authorities hope to encourage the reflex of this double vaccination, especially for people at risk.

Getting vaccinated against the flu and Covid at the same time: this is the “annual reflex” that the health authorities hope to create in France, especially for people at risk, still insufficiently protected, at the start of the vaccination season this Tuesday.

One of the major challenges is to “anchor the double flu-Covid vaccination” as “double protection for priority populations”, summarized Sarah Sauneron, Deputy Director General of Health, during a press conference on Monday. Doctors, nurses, midwives and even pharmacists can perform the two injections, which can be given in a row, without this being obligatory.

Raise the level of vaccination of seniors

More than 17.2 million French people are particularly invited to be vaccinated against these two viral pathologies which can, in certain cases, have fatal consequences. The categories targeted as a priority are at risk of developing serious forms: those over 65, residents of nursing homes, people of all ages suffering from certain chronic illnesses or severe obesity, pregnant women.

Vaccination is also recommended for caregivers and those around vulnerable people (seniors, infants, etc.). If the seasonal return of the flu is well known, Covid-19, the cause of several epidemic waves each year, has added a health risk to the autumn-winter period, where other respiratory viruses also circulate, such as that of influenza. origin of bronchiolitis.

Vaccination against influenza and Covid aims to “protect the most vulnerable, because it helps reduce serious forms and hospitalizations”, but also to “reduce the pressure on a heavily strained health system”, underlined the representative of the Ministry of Health.

Another stated objective: to raise the level of flu vaccination for seniors but also for caregivers, which is in decline. “Vaccination coverage for those over 65 has fallen” compared to the previous season, warned the Director General of Public Health France Caroline Semaille, judging that “it is alarming because the patients hospitalized and in intensive care are those over 65 “.

Countering “weariness” and “beliefs”

This decline was also evident for seniors living in nursing homes, where flu vaccination coverage was the “lowest measured in recent years” last season, noted Capucine Ulian, medical advisor to the general management of the Social cohesion. Also “a little alarming”: the decline in flu vaccination among health professionals, including doctors (traditionally more vaccinated than nurses and caregivers), according to Caroline Semaille.

Against Covid, the proportion of vaccinated seniors increased in one year to around 30% last season, but “remains low”, she pointed out. To explain the insufficient vaccination against flu and Covid, Sarah Sauneron mentioned a “fairly well-documented post-Covid vaccine fatigue and a belief that vaccination does not work, or not always”.

However, vaccines against Covid and flu are “well adapted to the strains of viruses circulating” this season and “the benefits greatly outweigh the risks”, with “especially pain at the injection site” as undesirable effects, assured Caroline Semaille.

For Covid, this year it will be a vaccine targeting the Omicron JN.1 variant, close to those dominant for several weeks. Initially, only the Pfizer-BioNTech serum will be available.

For the flu, three vaccines from different manufacturers, designed from the strains of the virus that are expected to circulate the most this season, can be used interchangeably. It is advisable to carry out vaccination before the active circulation of influenza viruses, because the body needs, once vaccinated, two weeks to form the necessary antibodies.

The impact of the flu and Covid over the coming months in France remains unknown. Last season, the flu returned to a pattern close to that before the Covid-19 pandemic, after two years heavily impacted by Covid. However, it caused 14,000 hospitalizations and more than 1,860 deaths, a figure probably lower than reality because it is based on incomplete death registers.