Emmanuel Macron chooses the strong way. The President of the Republic announced on Tuesday, February 28 the establishment of a “generalized” free vaccination campaign in colleges for 5th graders in order to eradicate the papillomavirus, responsible each year for more than 6,000 new cases of cancers.

“We will generalize from the start of the next school year for the 5th grade,” said the Head of State during a meeting with students in a college in Jarnac (Charente). “It helps prevent a lot of cancers,” added Emmanuel Macron. The announcements come four days before World Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Disease Awareness Day.

Extremely frequent, these infections are most of the time benign, but they can persist and lead to cancer: HPVs are responsible for 2,900 cancers of the cervix causing more than 1,000 deaths per year, 1,500 cancers of the ENT sphere, 1,500 cancers of the anus, 200 cancers of the vulva or vagina and a hundred cancers of the penis.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), these cancers can be completely eliminated through screening and vaccination. At the end of 2021, 45.8% of 15-year-old girls had received a dose of vaccine, and only 6% of boys of the same age, while the ten-year cancer control strategy 2021-2030 aims for a target of 80% here at seven years old.

Vaccination is now recommended for girls and boys between the ages of 11 and 14. It can also be offered as a catch-up until the age of 19 and remains possible until the age of 26 for men who have sex with men.

In Australia, thanks to vaccination, the rate of people infected with HPV fell from 22.7% in 2005-2007 to 1.5% in 2015 among young women aged 18-24. And forecasts envisage eradication of cervical cancer within 15 years.

At the end of 2021, 45.8% of 15-year-old girls had received one dose, and 37.4% of 16-year-old girls a complete two-dose regimen, according to figures from Public Health France which refer. Among boys, 6% had received a dose at age 15.

“Vaccination coverage has increased, because in 2018, 29% of 15-year-old girls had received a dose of vaccine, 40.7% in 2020”, underlines Sophie Vaux, program coordinator on vaccination coverage monitoring at Santé public France. “It nevertheless remains well below the objectives of the 2014-2019 cancer plan which set the coverage target at 60% or the latest cancer plan (2021-2030) which aims for 80% coverage in 2030.” “France has moreover one of the lowest vaccination coverages in Europe,” she continues.

More than 70% of teenage girls are vaccinated in Finland, Sweden, Hungary, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom.

“Several reasons explain the low French vaccination coverage”, points out Sophie Vaux. One of the first is the cost of the vaccine, between 95 and 116 euros. If it is reimbursed at 65% by Health Insurance and the remaining part covered by complementary mutual insurance, the advance of costs or the absence of mutual insurance can slow down.

A recent study by Public Health France showed in particular that vaccination was lower in the poorest populations. In France, unlike other countries, vaccination against HPV infections is called “opportunistic” in the sense that it is the teenager or his parents who make an appointment with the doctor for vaccination.

“Support by school medicine could make it possible to increase vaccination coverage, as has been observed in Australia, Canada, Finland, Norway or Scotland,” says Sophie Vaux. A school experiment conducted in the Grand Est for two years showed good results among young people in 5th grade: the vaccination rate rose from 9% to 27% the first year and from 14% to 31% the second.