Monkey’s smallpox: High Authority for Health recommends vaccinating contact cases

While three cases of monkey smallpox are confirmed in France, the HAS recommended that adults vaccinate, including health professionals, having had a risk contact with a patient.

Le Monde with AFP

While the United States is moving towards the vaccination of contact cases against the variolate of the monkey, France could take the same direction. Faced with the cases of a variety of the monkey, now three confirmed in France, the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommended, Tuesday, May 24, to vaccinate adults, including health professionals, having had at risk with a patient .

While contamination between humans by this virus increase in several countries, notably European, unrelated to a trip to Africa, the HAS advocates a “reactive” vaccination strategy, after exposure to a confirmed case, for “adults High risk contacts of vario of monkey “. This includes health professionals exposed without personal protection measures, according to the opinion made public.

This strategy “seems relevant with regard to the delays in the incubation of the disease and the vaccination strategy adopted in other European countries,” writes HAS. The incubation duration of the vario of the monkey is most often between 6 and 16 days, which can range from 5 to 21 days.

This vaccination must be done with the vaccine against the smallpox “of 3 ^{e generation only (in view of its tolerance profile, better than that of the vaccines of 1 > and 2 e generations and its effectiveness) “.}

Vaccines of 1 re and 2 ^e generations are no longer used for the general population since 1984, due to the eradication of the smallpox. A vaccine of 3 e generation (non-replicating living vaccine, that is to say not replying in the human body), Imvanex of the Bavarian Nordic laboratory, has been authorized in Europe since July 2013 and indicated against smallpox in adults. It also has a marketing authorization in the United States, under the name of Jynneos, for the prevention of the smallpox and the variolate of the monkey.

The HAS recommends administer this vaccine “ideally within four days after contact at risk and at most fourteen days later with a diagram in two doses (or three doses in immunocompromised subjects), spaced 28 days” .

These recommendations come into a more global response “including in particular the provision of antiviral treatments not assessed by HAS but with a marketing authorization” for the variolate of the monkey, especially for children for which The vaccine is not authorized.

Beyond the reinforced measures to identify and monitor cases and vaccination in certain cases, HAS judges that, “in the current epidemic context, it is essential to adopt prevention and protection measures personal “.