“We are equipped to face this epidemic with vaccines that will work,” says the president of Covars

Brigitte Autran, chair of the health risk monitoring and anticipation committee, said there are “very strong arguments” to believe that the existing vaccine protects “as effectively against the variant” that has emerged in recent months in Africa.

“We are equipped to face this epidemic with vaccines that will work”says Professor Brigitte Autran, president of the committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks (Covars) on France Inter on Saturday August 17, while the WHO declared a public health emergency on Wednesday in the face of the mpox epidemic in Africa.

The French health system has been placed in “state of maximum vigilance” and the government seized “the health authorities so that they can decide on the course of action to be taken in terms of updating the recommendations on the target populations for vaccination”said the resigning Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, on Friday, August 16.

The MVA vaccine from the Bavarian Nordic company, the only vaccine against monkeypox, “protects against severe forms” and has “certainly a capacity to reduce contagiousness”adds the emeritus professor of immunology. Brigitte Autran indicates that there are “very strong arguments” to think that this vaccine “will also protect effectively against the variant” which has emerged in recent months in Africa.

“Very few people are vaccinated”because smallpox vaccination was “arrested in France in the mid-1970s” because the disease had been “eradicated”she recalls. People born before 1975 and vaccinated have a “immune memory” but he is “necessary to have a new injection of vaccine to have complete protection”. As for people “vaccinated two years ago”they are “probably protected”.

If there is no reason, for the moment, to open vaccination to the general population in France, it is “very important to increase vaccine capacity” on a global scale according to Brigitte Autran. “We have to be optimistic. There are vaccines for different populations and manufacturers are working hard to increase production.”she concluded.

Xavier Lescure, infectious disease specialist at Bichat hospital in Paris, also added on France Inter on Saturday August 17: “There will inevitably be cases in France, but there will probably not be a massive spread of the virus in the population.” He puts it into perspective: “This will probably be limited to a few clusters, around the first cases, but nothing more.”

“We now have all the diagnostic, treatment and vaccine elements to intervene and limit the spread.”

Xavier Lescure, infectious disease specialist and member of Covars

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“We had training in 2022”during the first Mpox outbreak, he says. The variant is “more aggressive and more deadly” than that of 2022, but this mortality is “very variable depending on the age, the capacity of the patient’s immune system” and the “quality of care”.

Populations at risk are “young children”, “all immunocompromised people” And “pregnant women”underlines Xavier Lescure, also an epidemic risk referent and member of Covar. The causes of mortality are mainly “malnutrition and dehydration”which can be prevented with intravenous treatment, he explains.