The association for the fight against HIV Act Up-Paris wrote this Friday on Twitter to have been “alert” on an apparently expired lot of vaccine used in people against monkeypox. The association speaks of batch P00027 of the Imvanex vaccine, which has “an expiration date that goes from 2017 to 2020 depending on the conservation of the doses.”
Some people posted a photo. with a label identifying the batch of vaccine they had been injected with. Indeed, it can be read that the expiration date of this dose is March 2017, if the product has been stored at -20 °C or -50 °C, and March 2020 if it has been stored at -80 °C.
In any case, this vaccine seems today, in August 2022, to be expired. But these labels, in fact, have not been modified to incorporate the extension of the validity of these doses, which the health authorities do not consider expired.
“This lot is therefore valid”
“After verification, the controls carried out in 2022 by the pharmaceutical establishment of Public Health France, in conjunction with the Bavarian Nordic laboratory and the ANSM, allowed to carry out an extension of the expiration” until 03/31/2024, writes Act Up-Paris. “This batch is therefore valid within the usual standards of safety and efficacy.”
This vaccine “can be used beyond its initial expiration date”, assures Public Health France in an information letter dated July 20, 2022. This batch “has been the subject of successive extensions of its shelf life, in particular due to regular controls (quality, activity, stability),” says SPF.
“The latest controls carried out by the ANSM in 2022 demonstrate the stability of this batch, allowing it to be used until March 31, 2024 at this stage and in the context of supply tension in this specialty,” it is written.
Demand “greater transparency”
“We insist that this information should have been made known to those affected by the monkeypox vaccination,” still writes Act Up-Paris which specifies that it has asked the Ministry of Health for “greater transparency and communication of data and scientific opinions, of each batch so that those vaccinated can be informed.”
In its information letter, Public Health France explains for its part that the boxes of vaccines in question must be re-labeled with the new expiration date.
Health Minister François Braun repeated on Wednesday, during his first visit to a monkeypox vaccination center, that France had “enough to vaccinate the target population (…) that is, 250,000 people.” So far, some 18,500 people have received a first dose of the vaccine. But “whatever the efficacy of the vaccine after one or two doses, it will never be 100%,” the ministry warned Thursday, insisting on prevention in parallel.
According to a count held on Tuesday, August 2 by the health authorities, 2,239 cases have been confirmed in France. Unlike other countries like Spain, there are no deaths to report.
Source: BFM TV
