Ile-de-France: Why you can’t find flu vaccines in your pharmacy

“I’ve never seen this in six years, people go crazy! »Says Erika, pharmacist in Paris. It’s the same foray into flu shots across the Ile-de-France. “We sold in three days what we sold in a month and a half last year”, explains Pierre Béguerie, chairman of the board of the pharmacists’ association. “After a week, more than 60% of pharmacists had run out of vaccines …”

Since the campaign began on 13 October, more than 1.29 million doses have been sold in pharmacies in Ile-de-France, a 57% increase over the same period in 2019.

Guy, 60, paid the price. And it is not for lack of having anticipated. Since he has a “plastic aorta,” he receives an annual safety voucher to encourage him to get vaccinated against seasonal flu. “The doctor told me that it could wait until November 5, when the virus begins to circulate, to reach its peak at Christmas, reports the pensioner from Seraincourt (Val-d’Oise). So I wanted to buy it and put it in the fridge. I went to my usual pharmacy on Friday 16 October, three days after the campaign started. But I came across a poster: no vaccine. I asked that one to put one aside for me, but she said: There is no need, we have no more and no possible order ! “

He ended up finding a dose in “a small pharmacy in an Eure town” where the vaccine was issued to him after checking his vital card to make sure it was in the priority audience. “But for my neighbor, who has stents in his arteries, it’s done. There’s such a shortage that he can’t find any, Guy worries. The doctor told me it was worse than masks at the start of the pandemic. “

Marie-Jo, 74, also had a great time in the Oise. Since October 15, with her security letter in hand, explaining that this year with Covid it was even more important, she went around the pharmacies … in vain. “There aren’t any more in all of Beauvais. I left my phone number with the pharmacist and I still don’t have an answer, ”he sighs.

The manufacturer Sanofi explains that the production of such a vaccine is a race against time ”. “It takes six to seven months”, indicates this manufacturer, which indicates that it has produced “250 million seasonal vaccines in the world in 2020, and 20% more doses than last year in France”. Obviously not enough yet.

Anger of the mayor of Gennevilliers

For the mayor of Gennevilliers, Patrice Leclerc (PCF), “there is a flagrant lack of anticipation and not serious management in a period of pandemic”. On Friday he shared a letter to the prefect of Hauts-de-Seine. “Every year, we launch a vaccination campaign targeting our municipal employees,” he writes. Impossible, this year, to find vaccines. Without the vaccine, we increase the risk “of seeing a decline in the supply of care, of interrupting the operation of the municipal health center and of seeing the malfunction of the dedicated Covid center”. “

“We had to provide more vaccines as soon as Covid arrived,” scolds Dr. Guirec Loyer, head of the city’s municipal health center. However, we are at the forefront. It’s like going to the front without being sufficiently armed … “

But city officials aren’t a priority, retorts a health insurance agent. In the opinion of May 20, the High Authority for Health recalled the need to “ensure that the doses of vaccines available cover the target population as a priority”, ie those suffering from certain chronic diseases, over 65 or pregnant women . For health insurance, protecting people at risk also means preserving the health system already in great tension with Covid.

“Awareness of policyholders”

The priority audience, targeting more coupons (2.5 million residents in Ile-de-France) was not wrong. “We can clearly see the awareness of policyholders who are vaccinated this year to avoid the flu and its serious complications leading to hospitalizations”, summarizes Aurélie Combas-Richard, general manager of the primary health insurance fund (CPAM) in Seine – Saint-Denis, where 29.4% of frail people were vaccinated before November, compared to 12.9% last year on the same date, although Seine-Saint-Denis is the Ile-de-France department where people are less vaccinated against influenza (36.9% in 2019, compared to a regional rate of 43.8%).

The health crisis imposes, the health insurance has even postponed its internal vaccination campaign, intended for agents. But this is not the case everywhere, as demonstrated by vaccinations that have continued in some companies, regardless of the age or state of health of the public. “Not being able to receive my usual delivery, I go around the pharmacies to get 30 here, 50 there… explains Claude. (name has been changed), corporate nurse. Our job is to prevent and avoid contagion. Pharmacists who agree to sell him a few dozen doses do not even ask him for a professional card.

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