After having recommended the end of the compulsory vaccination of caregivers against Covid-19, the High Authority for Health (HAS) published, Monday July 31, a second report devoted to other vaccine recommendations.
The health authority, whose opinion is often followed by the government, recommends making the measles vaccine compulsory for all healthcare personnel. Only those who can certify that they have already been contaminated will be able to dispense with it, if this measure were to be adopted. However, measles transmission does not seem to be of concern. In 2022, Public Health France has identified only 15 cases in France, proof of a “virtual absence of circulation of the virus”. Europe has seen an increase in cases in 2019, but confinements and barrier gestures against Covid-19 have reduced this highly contagious disease. France, for its part, benefits from increasingly strong vaccination coverage, having made the injection compulsory from 2017 for all children born from 2018.
Nevertheless, the risk of contagion remains high in hospitals, especially for babies, not yet vaccinated, pregnant women and immunocompromised patients. According to a study by Santé Publique France, healthcare professionals are involved in 75 to 83% of measles cases in healthcare establishments. This dangerous situation, as well as the proven effectiveness of the vaccine, which offers lifelong protection and greater than 95%, convinced the HAS to decide in favor of the obligation.
Flu vaccination recommended
Another noteworthy opinion, the flu vaccine remains only recommended, due to its irregular impact on the epidemic from one year to another. The health authority also deplores the lack of data on the real risk posed by the circulation of influenza in hospitals and “insists on the need to carry out large-scale studies, particularly in establishments taking charge of people at risk of severe or complicated flu” to fill this gap.
At the same time, the HAS regrets the low vaccination coverage of caregivers against this winter virus. Only a quarter of them received the injection in 2021-2022, far from the objective set at 70%. The decision was awaited by the medical world, marked by a long and early flu epidemic last winter. The National Academy of Medicine advocates, for example, for compulsory vaccination in order to better protect patients, a measure doing “the honor of the profession” and “far from being an attack on individual freedoms”, as denounced by its detractors. Vaccination against chickenpox, hepatitis A and whooping cough are also recommended by the health authority.