It is a “little talked about public” according to the founder of Renaloo, an association of patients with kidney disease, which calls for “doing everything to protect the most fragile”.
Article written by
Published
Reading time : 1 min.
They are between “200,000 and 300,000 severely immunocompromised people in France and depending on the hospitals, the rate of immunocompromised patients in intensive care varies between 10% and 30%”, alert Sunday January 23 on franceinfo, Yvanie Caillé, founder of Renaloo, an association of patients with kidney disease. The association is one of the six signatories of an open letter on January 1 urging Emmanuel Macron to “Do everything to protect the most vulnerable”.
Franceinfo: Is your message to protect people and hospitals?
Yvanie Caillé: Yes. There are between 200,000 and 300,000 severely immunocompromised people in France and depending on the hospital, the rate of immunocompromised patients in intensive care varies between 10% and 30%. It’s a public that we don’t talk about much. The first thing is to widely publicize the preventive measures to protect them: avoid contact, wear the FFP2 mask if possible as soon as they are outside. These masks are still not reimbursed, but surgical masks are no longer enough.
The question of treatments is also crucial, the antiviral Paxlovid arrives in France as a curative treatment, is this good news?
Yes, even if it’s not going to be a panacea for all these patients, because it is contraindicated for patients with renal failure, who are numerous in our association. And then there is also a lot of interaction with certain molecules, in particular anti-rejection drugs which are used for organ transplant recipients. On the other hand, another drug is in the process of arriving in France: it is Xevudy which is used a little like Paxlovid. Much is hoped for from this drug for people [immunodéprimés] who already have Covid-19.
In terms of booster shots, is a 4th dose needed for these patients?
Some respond to vaccination but they need more doses, that’s what all the studies show. It is for this reason that the Vaccine Strategy Orientation Council decided to administer a second booster, which for these people is either a fifth or a sixth dose. It is indeed important and urgent that this new recall can be put in place but for the moment there have been no ministerial instructions so it has not started.