200 political figures and associations call for a commission of inquiry into government action

Political figures, association representatives and citizens are calling for the creation of a senatorial commission of inquiry into the government’s action in the fight against monkeypox, which they describe as“insufficient”in a column published Tuesday, August 2 on the HuffPost.

“The action of the government (…) is totally insufficient given the scale of the situation”accuse the signatories, criticizing “the extreme slowness of start-up” and the “undersizing” of the vaccination campaign, as well as “lack of transparent information” on the “number of vaccines available” Where “upcoming orders”. Among the authors of the platform are the deputies Sandrine Rousseau (EELV) and Danielle Simonnet (LFI), the first deputy mayor of Marseille, Michèle Rubirola (EELV), the presidents of the associations Aides, Act-Up Paris and Médecin du Monde . The signatories ask senators to set up a commission of inquiry, as was the case in 2020 on the management of the Covid-19 health crisis.

According to the latest report from Public Health France, published on Friday, 1,955 confirmed cases have been identified in France since May 20, the date on which a first case was detected on national territory. Faced with this surge in cases, more than 42,000 doses of smallpox vaccine were destocked and vaccination was extended to the populations most at risk: men who have sex with men and multipartner trans people, workers of sex and professionals working in places of sexual consumption.

Faced with criticism, the Minister of Health, François Braun, had assured at the end of July that France had “not late” and asserted that the stock of smallpox vaccines was “very substantial”. However, he refused to specify the extent, pleading the “top secret” because smallpox can be used as a biological weapon. Monday, after a meeting with the Aides association, the minister promised on Twitter that the “mobilization throughout the territory continues to increase”.