French dentists and vets ‘should be allowed’ to give Covid shots
France’s main health body wants more professionsals to administer the vaccine as rollout gathers pace
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.French dentists and vets should be allowed to administer COVID-19 vaccination injections, health officials have said.
The Haute Autorite de Sante (HAS) said that the supply of Covid doses will increase next month and that the health ministry had asked it to recommend how to bring more health staff into the vaccination campaign urgently.
France is far behind a number of other European countries, such as the UK, in its vaccine rollout with 11 per cent of the French population having received at least one dose of the vaccine, and just over four per cent having been fully vaccinated.
“The growing supply of doses will allow vaccination at a larger scale from April and will require the mobilisation of a greater number of competent professionals to quickly vaccinate the relevant people,” the HAS said.
The health body added that dentists and pharmacists should be authorised to give shots in vaccination centres as well as in their own surgeries.
Read more:
They also said that medical students, lab technicians, veterinarians and certain other health professionals should also be authorised to administer the vaccines.
Widening roles in this way would add about 250,000 medical staff to the vaccination drive, health officials said.
France’s main challenge has been the supply of doses, not the availability of medical staff. But the government has said it expects a major boost in vaccine supplies from April.
About 7.1 million people have been vaccinated so far. The government aims to vaccinate 10 million people by mid-April, 20 million by mid-May and 30 million by the summer.
It comes as Emmanuel Macron has defended not putting the country into a third Covid lockdown.
He said: “We were right not to implement a lockdown in France at the end of January because we didn’t have the explosion of cases that every model predicted.
“There won’t be a mea culpa from me. I don’t have remorse and won’t acknowledge failure.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments