The vaccination of 5th grade secondary school students against the papillomavirus “is not as high as we would like”, declared this Wednesday, December 13, the Minister of Health, while hailing “a first step” at the end of which vaccinate some 150,000 students.
“We are not as high as we would like. But we will certainly have between 100,000 and 150,000 fifth graders – probably more because many will have been vaccinated in the city – who would not have been vaccinated last year and that means we will not have cancer inside 20 or 30 years old,” said Aurélien Rousseau.
30% target
The objective set by the government in September was to vaccinate 30% of high school students for the first edition of this campaign.
“If we are at 100,000, 150,000 or 200,000, we will give the figures. They are 100,000, 150,000 or 200,000 that we did not have last year, so it is a first step. I have no difficulty in recognizing that there are things to adapt.” (…) But I think that we are going to achieve the goal of 150,000 that we had set,” the minister estimated.
Aurélien Rousseau, however, acknowledged in November that this campaign was “heterogeneous.” “It is “rather the CSP+ that respond favorably,” “we have to find the words to convince,” he indicated.
“Bringing vaccination to schools takes time,” said Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, Minister of Health Professions.
According to information from France Inter, less than one in ten schoolchildren has received the first of the two injections necessary for vaccination against the papillomavirus. Of the 632,000 fifth-graders in French public secondary schools, 61,400 have been vaccinated since the start of the school year.
The figures exclude community medicine and private education.
The government has launched a vaccination campaign for fifth grade students, but all boys and girls between 11 and 14 years old are affected. Although this vaccination is widespread and free, it is not mandatory and requires parental consent.
The figures revealed this Tuesday do not include young people vaccinated by a doctor in the city, while the Ministry of Health hopes that the campaign organized in schools will translate into an increase in injections in the city.
Furthermore, according to National Education data, France has about 800,000 5th grade students (public and private contracted). However, when it comes to private schools, only voluntary establishments can participate.
At the end of October, the general secretariat of Catholic education recommended that contracted Catholic schools “suspend” this campaign, for “precautionary reasons” after the death of a schoolboy, victim of a fall after vaccination. After this tragedy, however, the health authorities wanted to reassure by remembering that the vaccine is safe.
6,400 new cases of cancer
Human papillomaviruses, a sexually transmitted virus, are responsible for 6,400 new cases of cancer each year. The vaccine protects against nine types of human papillomavirus, responsible in particular for 90% of cervical cancers, 80% of anal cancers and 90% of anogenital warts.
In France, vaccination against HPV has been recommended for girls aged 11 to 14 since 2007 and for boys of the same age since 2021. It requires two doses: the first during the first trimester, the second to be applied from April to June of 2024. .
Source: BFM TV
