PARIS (Reuters) – France will extend the period between the first and second injection of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks from April 14 to accelerate the vaccination campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD on Sunday. newspaper.
Although France’s highest health authority recommended a six-week period between the two January shots to stretch the stock, the government said at the time that there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed at a longer interval.
France could now do this safely because it vaccinated a younger age group, Veran said.
“(It) will allow us to vaccinate faster without diminishing protection,” the minister said in the paper.
France has approved the use of the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines.
Veran also said the AstraZeneca vaccine would be available Monday to all people over 55 and not just those with serious pre-existing conditions.
After an icy start, vaccine roll-out in France is starting to pick up, reaching a target of 10 million first doses per week, ahead of the mid-April target. The government aims to make an additional ten million first shots by mid-May.
Johnson & Johnson was due to deliver its first 200,000 doses for France on Monday, a week earlier, Veran said.
President Emmanuel Macron, forced by rising infections and an overburdened healthcare system to impose a third nationwide lockdown, is counting on an accelerated rollout of vaccines to allow for a gradual reopening of the country from the middle of next month.
The number in intensive care continues to rise, and France will almost certainly pass the 100,000-death threshold this week. It reported more than 43,000 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday and said there were now 5,769 patients receiving critical care.
However, Veran said there were signs that another lockdown was starting to slow infection rates.
“It remains very high,” Veran told the JDD. “We can expect the fall to come after a period of stabilization. But we must continue for that. “
Reporting by Richard Lough; Editing by Daniel Wallis