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France is making efforts to persuade its people to accept the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
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Regulators say the vaccine is safe and effective, but its performance data has raised some doubts.
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France’s President Emmanuel Macron was one of those who downplayed the vaccine in the past.
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France is working to fix the disastrous image of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the country, after many in the country have been reluctant to take it.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the French health ministry said at a news conference that “we need to go into rehabilitation dynamics for this vaccine”, making explicit a problem that has been around for weeks.
The country is counting on the injection of AstraZeneca to accelerate its slow vaccination campaign. As of February 23, France had distributed about 3.8 million doses of vaccines.
According to Our World in Data, this puts France 11th in the world, behind the United Kingdom, USA, Brazil and Turkey.
As of Thursday, 29,000 family doctors will be allowed to deliver the AstraZeneca vaccine to their offices, hoping to speed up the launch.
Some doctors say they hope to have to convince their patients to take it. Rumors that the vaccine does not work well are circulating in the country, as reported by France TV Info.
Speaking on Wednesday to the French commercial publication Le Quotidien du Medecin, Prof. Alain Fischer, leader of France’s vaccination strategy, emphasized that the vaccine “is not inferior” to jabs like those made by Pfizer and Moderna.
The effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine was questioned after confusion over test results undermined people’s confidence in the injection.
President Emmanuel Macron was among those who downplayed the vaccine, saying in late January that the vaccine appeared “almost ineffective” in people over 65.
Insider contacted the French health ministry for comment, but received no response at the time of publication.
The European Medicines Agency reports that the jab is 60% effective against COVID-19 in clinical trials, less than its Pfizer and AstraZeneca equivalents.
The AstraZeneca jab is given only to children under 65 in France, with priority for healthcare professionals.
Like other European countries, such as Germany, French regulators said there was little data on how the vaccine works in people over 65, so they did not authorize its use in them.
However, real-world data suggests that the jab is proving effective, which may even convince the French government.
On Tuesday, French Health Minister Olivier Véran commented on the “absolutely phenomenal” effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine in people over 65, as data from the distribution in Scotland show.
He said he was waiting for the data to be reviewed by other scientists before deciding whether to launch it for those over 65 as well.
Véran, 40, showed his confidence in the vaccine by getting the vaccine on February 8.
France has faced resistance from some doctors to receive the AstraZeneca jab.
Earlier this month, the UFLM, a group representing medical personnel, asked that medical personnel receive only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, for fear that the AstraZeneca vaccine would perform worse.
As some of the first French health workers were vaccinated, some reported strong flu-like side effects and said they were sick from work. This led the country to spread the vaccine distribution among health professionals.
Fischer, the French government’s vaccine leader, had previously dismissed the idea that these side effects were worrying. He criticized the “dramatization” of the side effects when speaking to the radio station Europe 1, Le Point reported on February 18.
He said that side effects are seen mainly in younger populations and that “almost nothing” happens in people over 50.
France’s vaccination campaign started slowly and faced resistance from the start. It is still far behind other countries, with about 3.8 million doses of vaccines delivered by February 23. This is just over half of the 7.5 million doses delivered to Israel and 17 times less than the more than 66.4 million doses delivered to the United States, according to Our World in Data.
The country faces historically low confidence in vaccines. In December, a survey revealed that only 40% of French people wanted to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The country’s confidence in the medical establishment has been shaken by medical scandals, such as the one involved in the Mediator diabetes diet pill in 2019.
This distrust galvanized the rise of opposing figures among the anti-big Pharma and anti-capitalist groups in France, such as Dr. Didier Raoult.
The doctor notably claimed that a malaria drug could prevent and cure COVID-19, a theory that has become President Donald Trump’s favorite. The claim was subsequently contradicted by several trials.
France is not the only country that fights distrust of the AstraZeneca jab, with people refusing the vaccine, not attending consultations and playing with the system across Europe and the UK, Insider reported this week.
Thousands of doses of AstraZeneca vaccines have been stocked in Germany, as demand is low.
Germany is also launching a campaign to encourage people to get the vaccine.
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