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HEALTH

‘Absurd’: France denies favouring French firm after slow Covid-19 vaccine rollout

France on Wednesday said its Covid-19 vaccination campaign, slammed as scandalously slow by critics, would need vaccines from multiple sources, but dismissed as "absurd" claims it was holding out for a jab co-produced by a French firm.

'Absurd': France denies favouring French firm after slow Covid-19 vaccine rollout
A nurse administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine to an elderly person in Montpellier, south of France, on January 4th. Photo: AFP

France's drive has seen only 7,000 people immunised since December 27th, compared with hundreds of thousands given a vaccine in Germany within the same timespan and over 1.3 million in the UK, which started earlier.

The campaign in the EU is so far solely using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine – though a vaccine from US firm Moderna was approved by a watchdog Wednesday and the bloc is keen to bring other vaccine sources online.

But a vaccine developed by France's Sanofi and Britain's GSK may only be ready later in the year due to delays and will still need approval.

“The vaccine strategy cannot be based on a single vaccine. Hence the importance of having done this on a European level which guarantees us access to at least six vaccines,” Europe Minister Clément Beaune told CNews television. 

READ ALSO: France to launch online platform so people can sign up for Covid-19 vaccine

Allegations have been aired in Germany by leftwing politicians, but also by the hugely influential mass circulation Bild daily that France pressured the EU to order fewer doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to help Sanofi.

In comments late Tuesday, Beaune described such claims as “unacceptable and false”.

“It is absurd to pit countries and labs against each other, all countries need all vaccines and to vaccinate as many people as possible by summer.”

“Isolated strategies can be a temptation in the short term, but they are ineffective over time,” he said.

'Mauricette syndrome'

The French government on Tuesday vowed to drastically speed up vaccinations, notably with a change of strategy to include health workers over 50, as well as residents of care homes.

But this has not dampened criticism of the laggardly rollout, a problem compounded by high levels of scepticism in France about vaccines.

Government spokesman Gabriel Attal on Wednesday confirmed reports that global management consultants McKinsey & Company have been hired to provide “logistical and strategic advice” to French authorities on the vaccine campaign.

READ ALSO: How France is changing its Covid-19 vaccine strategy after anger at slow start

Reaffirming pledges of a faster pace, he said some 500 vaccination centres outside hospitals would be set up in France within two weeks.

France would have 1 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses by Wednesday evening and then would be getting 500,000 every week, he added.

Prime Minister Jean Castex is due to speak at a press conference late on Thursday and, with little chance of restaurants and cultural events reopening in France this month, Attal vowed he would provide as “much visibility as possible”.

READ ALSO: What can we expect from the French government's Covid-19 announcement?

The slow rollout has proved a massive embarrassment for the government, prompting opposition claims of a fiasco, even at a time when France is seeing lower infection rates than Germany or the UK.

A widely-shared internet meme Wednesday mocking the government showed a graphic with the large numbers vaccinated elsewhere while France had only given the jab to “Mauricette”, a care home resident who was the first French person to be vaccinated.

 

The Canard Enchainé weekly was the latest outlet Wednesday to report that President Emmanuel Macron is furious over the slow rollout, citing him as yelling at a meeting Monday “enough of the Mauricette syndrome”

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HEALTH

France reports nearly 200 cholera cases in Mayotte

Nearly 200 cases of cholera have been reported on the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, which is struggling to contain the deadly epidemic.

France reports nearly 200 cholera cases in Mayotte

“As of June 18th, 2024, 193 cases of cholera have been reported in Mayotte,” France’s Santé publique France health agency reported in its weekly update.

Of those, 172 were locally acquired cases, while 21 were in people infected in the neighbouring Comoros archipelago and countries on the African continent.

Cholera is an infectious disease typically causing severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps. It spreads easily in unsanitary conditions.

Mayotte, which is home to around 320,000 people, reported its first locally acquired cases of cholera in late April, according to officials in Paris.

Two people have died since the beginning of the epidemic, one of them a three-year-old girl.

Santé publique France warned there was a particularly high risk of transmission in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, “as long as access to drinking water and sanitation is unsatisfactory”.

French authorities have been criticised for failing to secure access to drinking water to prevent a cholera epidemic in its overseas territory.

President Emmanuel Macron called for cholera to be ‘consigned to the past’ when he hosted a summit on Thursday on vaccine production in Africa.

Many parts of Africa have recently seen fatal outbreaks of cholera, which has highlighted the shortage of local vaccine production.

The Comoros, which has been affected by a cholera epidemic for the past four months, has recorded 134 deaths and more than 8,700 cases, according to a report published by local authorities this month.

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