The HAS, whose opinions serve as the basis for the government's public health decisions, said on Friday "in favor of maintaining the obligation to vaccinate against (the) Covid-19 for personnel working in health and medical establishments. social".
This opinion was eagerly awaited because the debates have resumed a lot in recent weeks, especially in the political sphere, on the advisability of reintegrating caregivers who are not vaccinated against Covid.
Indeed, French caregivers - doctors, nurses ... - who work in hospitals or in nursing homes, and more generally the employees of these health establishments, have been obliged since last year to be vaccinated against the disease. .
The unvaccinated are therefore prohibited from exercising their activity, a situation denounced by part of the opposition.
Supporters of reinstatement are mainly on the left, with France Insoumise (LFI), and on the far right, with the National Rally (RN), but also on the right with the Republicans (LR).
They argue that the anti-Covid vaccines have lost much of their effectiveness against the transmission of the disease, although they remain protective on an individual level against severe forms.
They also consider it absurd to prevent caregivers from exercising their activity in a context of lack of staff, although the proportion of people suspended is extremely small in hospitals.
The opinion of the HAS, on which the government has yet to express itself, is therefore of great importance, especially since parliamentarians have just decided on Thursday that a possible reinstatement of caregivers would be automatic as soon as the authority gives its agreement. .
- Disagreements between doctors -
This green light is ultimately not on the agenda: "the data are not such as to call into question this vaccination obligation today", judges the HAS.
This highlights the current large number of contaminations in France, linked to the BA.5 lineage of the Omicron variant, and is against the argument that vaccines no longer have any collective interest.
Even if the vaccines have largely lost their effectiveness against contamination, it has not completely disappeared, in particular in the months following a booster dose, judges the authority.
The obligation to be vaccinated therefore promotes "better protection of people treated or accompanied, first and foremost the most vulnerable", concludes the HAS.
This opinion is in line with other recent positions, starting with the Academy of Medicine. This body, which unlike the HAS has no official role but carries the consensus of the discipline, expressed this week its "firm opposition".
Slightly less clear-cut, the Scientific Council, on the verge of dying out after having guided the government's policies against Covid for more than two years, said Thursday "very reserved" about reinstatement.
But other great scientific figures, not very suspicious of complacency towards anti-vaccination movements, believe, on the contrary, that it is time to reintegrate unvaccinated caregivers.
This is the case of epidemiologist Antoine Flahault who, unlike the HAS, ruled on Twitter on Wednesday that "the maintenance of the suspension of unvaccinated caregivers (was) no longer scientifically based" in view of the loss of vaccine efficacy.
"Blame these health personnel for their irresponsible and illegal past behavior, yes. Do not reinstate them, no!", He decided, pushing in turn other doctors to express their disagreement.
Some opponents of reintegration indeed consider it unacceptable not from a scientific point of view but from an ethical point of view, in the idea that non-vaccinated caregivers have failed in their mission by endangering patients.
