It is rare enough to be reported: a union of employers and a union of employees, hand in hand to demand the acceleration of anti-covid vaccination in companies. This Monday, May 3, the bosses of MEDEF and the CFDT went to the Interenterprise Medical Center Europe (CMIE), in Paris, together to request the relaxation of the criteria for access to the vaccine (age and comorbidity), so as to open the floodgates for in-company vaccination and allow employees to return to their workplaces safely. To speed up the vaccination campaign, the two unions are seeking access to messenger RNA vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna, and for injections, intend to rely on occupational health services. There are 250 in France. In Vienne, these health professionals have been mobilized since mid-March.
A significant strike force
The Vienne occupational health association has 106 professionals: occupational physicians, nurses, health assistants but also psychologists, occupational therapists and other occupational health specialists. The ASSTV has 9,500 member companies, i.e. 100,000 employees to follow in all.
Disclaimers related to the Astrazeneca
But at this point, few target workers have volunteered to receive their first injection: barely fifty candidates have received their dose. It must be said that the health services in France only offer Astrazeneca and that this vaccine has seen its images tarnished by the controversy over certain side effects.
“We had a lot of volunteers who asked us if we could vaccinate with pfizer or Moderna, we told them no, that we only had Astrazeneca, explains Dominique Derenancourt, director general of health at work in Vienne. Many candidates then withdrew “.
This does not mean that priority audiences have not been vaccinated, they could very well have done so via their doctor with other types of vaccine.
Logistics issues to take into account
This is what Medef and CFDT are asking for at the national level, access to messenger RNA vaccines. But here too, the situation would remain complicated, insists the director of ASSTV 86.
“We risk running into a logistical problem. Because vaccines of this type require very strict storage conditions that we do not necessarily have in mass.”
Pfizer, for example, can be stored in a fridge at minus 80 degrees, and then, as soon as the mixtures are made in the bottles, the doses must be used up within six hours maximum. Which is not always easy to manage for occupational health services.
In Vienne,ASSTV 86 has opened three vaccination centers in Châtellerault, Poitiers, and Civray.The staff have been ready since mid-March, lacking more than the volunteers for the injection. And for now, it is not jostling.
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