In an attempt to stem the resumption of the Covid-19 epidemic in France, which is already in its ninth wave, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the High Authority for Health (HAS) have authorized Sanofi’s vaccine to be administered. as a booster dose.
After several years of testing, Sanofi’s vaccine, named VidPrevtyn Beta, received the green light from the European Medicines Agency last November. Following this decision, it was the European Commission that approved the French vaccine for booster vaccination. Important booster dose given the rise in the peak of contamination observed in France.
The world based on figures from Public Health France communicated the contamination figures between December 3 and 9, there was an average of just over 60,000 cases. Far from the contaminations of certain previous waves, these contaminations are worrying because combined with an early flu epidemic and a red wave of bronchiolitis. The other worrying factor: the vaccination which is trampling in France. Since the beginning of October “only 2.8 million people” lamented this Friday, December 9 the Minister of Health. However, the alarmist messages have started to bear fruit as the Parisian reported that in “ten days, the number of people receiving a booster dose of vaccine each day “doubled from 37,000 to 74,000 on average.”
In an attempt to further accelerate vaccination, the High Authority for Health has therefore approved the vaccines of Sanofi on French territory and of Novavax, as a vaccine eligible for the recall. These vaccines are “an opportunity to remobilize the French” wrote in a communicated the French health authority.
How does Sanofi’s vaccine, VidPrevtyn Beta, work?
This vaccine, developed by the French company Sanofi and the British company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), does not use messenger RNA technology, and is similar to the operating mode of a so-called “classic” vaccine. This vaccine uses so-called “recombinant protein” technology, i.e. the vaccine contains as antigen “a recombinant protein copy of the surface protein of a Beta variant of SARS-CoV-2 and an adjuvant” as mentioned by the website MyVaccines. Clearly, VidPrevtyn Beta contains a version of the Spike protein which causes Covid-19, manufactured in the laboratory and an adjuvant therefore triggering an immune reaction to protect the person in the event of subsequent contamination.
An effective vaccine against the Omicron variant?
The High Authority for Health has noted, based on the results of CoviBoost, that the vaccine showed “a good immune response against BA4/5 variants with this vaccine” despite still “limited” data. The French health authority declared to be “awaiting additional elements confirming the first data which suggest an effectiveness at least equivalent to that of the vaccines currently recommended against the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 variant”. For its part, the European Medicines Agency underlined in a FAQs that a “booster injection with VidPrevtyn Beta restored immunity against different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in 627 people aged 18 years and older who had previously completed a primary series”.
Who can be injected with this vaccine?
First of all, it should be emphasized that it is a “second-line” vaccine, recommended the High Authority for Health which “maintains its recommendation to preferentially use bivalent mRNA vaccines, regardless of the vaccines used previously”. Then this vaccine only concerns for the moment people over the age of 18, the tests having not been carried out in children. precise the EMA. Another key indicator, VidPrevtyn Beta will only be given once as a booster dose, at least four months after a previous mRNA or adenoviral vector vaccine against COVID-19.
In general, as with all boosters, they are recommended 3 months after the last booster for people over 80 and immunocompromised, and 6 months for all others according to the HAS. If a person has been infected with SARS-CoV-2, this reminder must be done at least 3 months after infection.