Health. Rousseau hopes 150,000 college students will be vaccinated against papillomavirus this year
The Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau hopes that some 150,000 5th graders can be vaccinated this year against papillomaviruswhile believing that it will be necessary to demonstrate “tenacity”, he indicated on Wednesday.
THE start of the campaignpromised at the start of the year by the president Emmanuel Macronwas launched at the beginning of October in French colleges.
For the moment, “we have had around 150,000 returns: 50,000 refusals and 100,000 acceptances”, indicated the minister on the sidelines of a trip to the new hospital of the Curie Institute in Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de- Seine). According to the latest data from National Education, France has some 800,000 students in 5th grade (public and private under contract).
“It is a campaign where we will have vaccinated, I hope, 150,000 5th grade students” at the end of the year, continued the minister. “If we are at 150,000, that’s as many (people) who will not develop uterine cancer, of the vulva, of the throat,” he congratulated himself. The minister, however, recognized that this campaign was “heterogeneous”.
Regional disparities
“It is rather the CSP+ who respond favorably”, “we have to find the words to convince”, he detailed.
If the increases are for the moment “very partial”, they indicate that in certain regions such as Brittany, “it is working very strongly”. In other places such as Seine-Saint-Denis, the vaccination rate varies from “8% in certain colleges to 35% in others”, specified Aurélien Rousseau.
The expected objective for this first edition of the campaign was at least 30% of students vaccinated at college, according to the Ministry of Health at the beginning of September. “I think we won’t be there,” admitted Aurélien Rousseau. “Some people tell us the information is too complicated, others that it is too simple. We need to adapt our tools.” “It’s a start, it will take tenacity,” he said.
