2024-09-02 13:18:37
Is it still useful to be vaccinated against mpox (formerly known as “monkey pox”named after the virus that causes the disease, monkeypox)? The High Authority for Health (HAS), the independent organization responsible for leading the French health policy, responded positively, and advised, Monday September 2, people who are at risk of being injected with the Bavarian Nordic product, marketed in Europe under the name Imvanex.
This target population has not changed since the last outbreak outside Africa in 2022-2023. These include men who have sex with men (MSM), trans people who express multiple sexual partners, people in prostitution, professionals in sex venues, whatever the status of these places, and finally people sharing the same living space as those previously mentioned.
In total, there are 300,000 people affected by these vaccination recommendations, since the Health of France estimates the population of MSM with multiple partners around 250,000 people, and the authorities estimate people with multiple partners around 30,000 to 40,000 prostitutes.
“We are facing the threat of a real pandemicemphasized epidemiologist Anne-Claude Crémieux. This is perhaps one of the rare times when we are, faced with an epidemic virus, able to intervene while the disease is still confined to a limited target population. We must learn from the past. » The president of the technical committee on vaccines of HAS, at the origin of the plan, therefore refers to the first epidemic outbreak of mpox outside Africa which, in 2022 and 2023, affects 117 countries around the world, causing some 100,000 cases of this. The disease was previously limited to only a few African countries.
“What determines is anonymous multi-partnership”
The health challenge today is twofold, since the 2b subclade at the origin of the outbreak two years ago continues to circulate in thirteen countries outside Africa, including France – 126 cases have been reported in the country since the beginning of the year, including only one. woman. And the new 1b subclade, identified a year ago in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and which is spreading at high speed among its African neighbors, may spread throughout the world, as was the case with its predecessor.
The target population in France remains unchanged from 2022, even if the disease primarily affects children in the African region. The two subtypes that are of concern to the world community today are sexually transmitted among the population with multiple partners. The first cluster identified in April 2024 for the new subclade 1b was indeed among MSM in the Kwango region, in the DRC.
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