According to the Act Up association, the vaccination strategy is not effective enough because there is a lack of doses, places and above all volunteers to vaccinate.
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“The opening of the center announced by the Minister of Health is a step in the right direction, but it comes very late”, regrets François Emery, advocacy officer at the Act Up Paris association, Tuesday July 26 on franceinfo, after the opening today in Paris of a vaccination center to vaccinate populations at risk against monkeypox. A hundred vaccination centers are open in France, while 1,700 cases have been detected.
franceinfo: How do you welcome the opening of a new vaccinodrome against monkeypox?
Francois Emery: The opening of the center announced by the Minister of Health is a step in the right direction, but it comes very late. For weeks now, we have been warning about the need to vaccinate as much as possible and to ramp up the system so that the maximum number of people concerned can be vaccinated. There are still people who have appointments that are too far away or who cannot make an appointment. There are not enough places available. This is why we are asking for the rise in power of the vaccine system. But it will be useless without knowing the number of doses available, which we do not know, once again. And it will be useless if people are not informed.
What do you think is missing for an effective strategy?
There are already missing doses. We have no visibility on the stocks: we are asking the government to make public the state of the strategic stocks, which is not the case for the moment. So far, we don’t know if we have enough for everyone. We also lack arms, the fact of requisitioning medical students to fill vaccination centers is a good solution but it also shows the state of our health system. There is also a massive lack of information on the disease since its arrival in France. Community associations and associations for the fight against AIDS inform their public, but we do not have a large enough audience to reach everyone. In recent days, the subject has been gaining momentum in the media, but the government does not yet communicate enough. Beyond vaccination, very little is raised about the issue of social support, especially for the most vulnerable and isolated people. We are also asking for the establishment of a compensation system for sex workers and a housing system for people who cannot find accommodation individually. This concerns a substantial part of the population of sex workers.
Regarding vaccination in pharmacies, what is the position of the government?
This is being discussed with the minister’s office: we think that skills should be extended so that pharmacists and city doctors can carry out vaccinations. We are told that there are technical difficulties with the storage of the vaccine, but these difficulties had been swept away during Covid-19, so we should also be able to do it for monkeypox. I find it as ironic as the day before the WHO announcement [qui a déclenché son plus haut niveau d’alerte sanitaire pour la variole du singe samedi], the General Directorate of Health asked associations not to make noise around this disease. It is since this announcement that monkeypox has become a subject of greater media coverage.