An abandoned device in favor of vaccination. Two weeks after the extension of the monkeypox vaccination, health authorities announced the abandonment of the contact tracing process aimed at preventing contact with a sick person.
In fact, the ARS Île-de-France indicated last week that this process “is no longer carried out every time a case is declared, no contact warning is strongly recommended every time”.
Contacted by BFMTV.com, the General Directorate of Health has not yet given the reasons that motivated the health authorities to give up this prevention tool.
“In practice, it is not possible”
A choice announced several days ago, when Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), decided on Saturday to activate the highest level of alert in an attempt to stop the monkeypox outbreak. The last time the UN body declared a public health emergency of international concern was in January 2020 with Covid-19.
For comparison, there are already 11,915 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, a more contagious disease and for which contact tracing is of little interest in the event of a strong epidemic recovery. More than 1,700 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in France, almost half of them in Île-de-France.
Of these, the vast majority are men: only seven women and two children have contracted the disease. Fewer patients, therefore more chances to stop the chains of contamination. That is why the decision of the French authorities has unleashed a wave of indignation and anger on the web, especially among LGBT people.
Is the contact tracing device therefore more suitable for this epidemic than for Covid-19? “I don’t think so,” Benjamín Davido responds to BFMTV.com. The infectologist at the Raymond Poincaré hospital in Garches (Hauts-de-Seine) weighs the pros and cons of contact tracing for this epidemic that certainly “does not play on the same field” as that of Covid-19.
“In practice it is not possible, it is extremely difficult to trace the chains of transmission,” he explains to BFMTV.com, adding that three-quarters of these patients cannot tell him how and by whom they are contaminated.
Vaccination “more suitable” to curb the epidemic
Benjamín Davido also judges that tracing the contacts of a monkeypox patient “no longer makes sense with vaccination and its expansion. […] It’s not a panacea.” A “false good idea” therefore for the infectologist who believes that the problem lies mainly in the weak prevention campaign of the health authorities: “we forgot to do some”.
“We have to be pragmatic and effective in this new health crisis and that certainly goes through the classic prevention messages,” says epidemiologist Antoine Flahault for BFMTV.com. The director of the Geneva Institute for Global Health also considers it “very difficult” to trace contacts with monkeypox: “in the vast majority of current cases, they are men who have had sexual relations with many other men, sometimes strangers”.
Antoine Flahault lists in particular as preventive measures the isolation of cases for at least three weeks associated with the quarantine of contacts, followed by the use of condoms for another 12 weeks after isolation. “But this runs the risk of being insufficient”, fears the epidemiologist, “it is very likely that some infected will decide to continue living as before despite the recommendations and we must try to stop the chains of contamination at home as well”.
“A pragmatic approach based on the vaccine and the available drugs seems more likely to break the chains of contamination”, therefore, judges the epidemiologist.
Call to work closely with LGBTQ+ associations
Health Minister François Braun announced the opening in Île-de-France of a “high-capacity” monkeypox vaccination center. In addition and from this Tuesday, all medical students will be able to be vaccinated against the virus.
“Since the beginning of this epidemic, we have PCR tests, an approved vaccine, and antivirals that we hope will be effective,” says Antoine Flahault.
The director of the Geneva Institute for Global Health believes, therefore, that health authorities should join forces with the capacities and collaboration of activist associations representing LGBTQ+ communities “both to ensure effective communication and to encourage support from patients to the recommended measures”. Also for Benjamín Davido it is “the conjunction of arms”, that is to say of the preventive measures, which must be fundamental to accelerate the vaccination campaign and thus stop the contamination.
Source: BFM TV
