2023-10-20 18:27:59
The Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, during the vaccination campaign against human papillomavirus (HPV) at the Jean-Renoir college-lyceum in Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis), October 20, 2023. JACQUES WITT/SIPA
The minister is teasing. “Be careful, it’s going to hurt”, says Aurélien Rousseau to a handful of 5th grade students, shortly before they were vaccinated against papillomavirus, Friday October 20 at the Jean-Renoir middle school in Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis). Among them, Kahina enjoys rotating the wheeled chair where she is sitting – unless it is stress? “I have an English test afterward” she confides without seeming to worry too much. The vaccinator asks her to roll up her left sleeve. ” NOW ? “, the patient wonders. In the next room, a pick-me-up awaits him: it’s a compote.
The vaccination campaign for 5th grade students against papillomavirus (or HPV), announced by Emmanuel Macron in February, began on October 2. Papillomaviruses, which are transmitted sexually, cause more than 6,000 new cases of cancer per year in France, including nearly 3,000 cervical cancers causing more than 1,000 deaths, 1,500 cancers of the ENT sphere and 1,500 of the anus. According to several studies, the vaccine is more effective if administered early in life.
In terms of vaccination coverage in France, “we go from afar”admitted the Minister of Health in Bondy. According to data from Public Health France stopped as of December 31, 2022, 47.8% of girls born in 2007 – and therefore aged around fifteen years – had received one dose out of the two planned. Among boys, this rate was only 12.8%. However, France’s ten-year plan against cancer has set the objective, for 2030, of vaccination coverage of 80% of the population against HPV.
Heterogeneity according to regions
Aurélien Rousseau is not committing to a quantified objective for this first college campaign, which will end in the spring with the injection of the second dose. In September, a practical sheet from the Ministry of Health mentioned the ambition to vaccinate 30% of eligible students. “We will see the figures at the end, declares the minister. Being what they are in France, we can only progress. » In his eyes, the priority is to“anchor the habit” of this vaccination, a “huge challenge” with 5,400 public colleges concerned as well as 1,700 private establishments to which it was offered.
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Mr. Rousseau expects a lot of heterogeneity depending on the region. In Brittany, he argues, “it works very, very strongly”. Nationally, he estimates that“It’s going to take a little tenacity” to bring the campaign against HPV into the mainstream. The minister does not hear “make people feel guilty, because it’s up to us to convince”.
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