Covid vaccines: pharmacists and doctors facing a recall campaign that "does not mobilize"

The new “bivalent” vaccines do not find their public. While more than 25 million French people have been called upon to take their fourth dose of the Covid-19 vaccine since Monday October 3, pharmacists and doctors do not see any enthusiasm for the new vaccination campaign. “It starts very slowly,” says Pierre-Olivier Variot, president of the Union of Community Pharmacists. “People are not rushing to the pharmacy to come and get vaccinated,” says the pharmacist who practices in Côte-d’Or.

After more than a week of campaigning, only 110,000 people have received a fourth dose of the so-called “bivalent” vaccines, according to figures from the Ministry of Health. These vaccines are offered to people over 60, immunocompromised people, pregnant women and healthcare professionals, and should protect against the Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5 variants. The campaign is not open to the whole population, but the Minister of Health, François Braun, indicated that “of course, if you wish to be vaccinated, you can”.

The second booster dose (which designates a fourth injection) was already open to the elderly and fragile, 6.5 million people are already vaccinated. This time, the health authorities wanted to emphasize the effectiveness of these new vaccines against the variants. 500,000 doses were delivered at the start of the campaign and the stock should rise to 12 million doses by the end of the month. In addition, 36.8% of over 75s received the two booster doses, 30.83% of 65-74 year olds, according to Covid Tracker.

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“It’s not the tidal wave”

If pharmacies received the first doses of the Moderna vaccine on October 3, they had to wait three additional days for the one offered by Pfizer. Certainly, “but it’s not the tidal wave”, notes Luc Duquesnel, president of general practitioners within the Confederation of Medical Unions of France. “The patients that we see on a daily basis for treatment, we try as much as possible to encourage them to be vaccinated. But for the rest, that does not mobilize”, criticizes the general practitioner.

“We risk having figures much lower than previous campaigns,” predicts the doctor. “Nothing to do, for example, with the campaign last March or during the introduction of the health pass”, abounds Pierre-Olivier Variot. But the pharmacist wants to remain optimistic. “We are going to make four vials this week”, he specifies, the equivalent of around twenty doses of vaccine.

Why are these new vaccines not appealing? According to the two health professionals, the reasons are multiple. “The Covid is no longer a stated priority, underlines Luc Duquesnel. The French are concerned about their purchasing power and about gasoline.” The pharmacist also notes in his pharmacy that “the Covid is no longer part of the topics of discussion”.

A link with the increase in contamination

The doctor in Mayenne also ensures that the closure of vaccination centers has something to do with it. “There is no longer any mobilization of all the actors”, he regrets. People wishing to be vaccinated must therefore go either to a pharmacy or to their doctor, as most centers have not reopened for this campaign.

But this lack of enthusiasm could also be linked to the increase in contamination. “If people are sick, they have to wait three months to receive their second booster dose”, explains Pierre-Olivier Variot. On Monday, Public Health France counted 9,373 new cases of Covid, an increase of 7.9% in cases compared to the previous week. And incidence rates among those over 80 reach more than 500 per 100,000 population. “People who need to be vaccinated catch the virus, so it makes sense that we don’t have them in our pharmacies,” he says.

Another concern, according to him, the flu vaccination campaign does not start until next week, October 18. “A lot of people wait to do both injections at the same time,” he observes. He hopes that this new campaign will be able to encourage the most refractory to come and be injected with the two vaccines.