The anti-grippe Efluelda, reserved for the elderly, who had not been marketed in the last season due to a disagreement between the State and the Sanofi pharmaceutical laboratory on the price, returns to the French market, according to a decree published Thursday in the Official Journal.
“The return of Efluelda in trivalent form constitutes a major advance,” Sanofi told AFP, who “anticipated its production in March” to guarantee its availability for the 2025/26 season.
“It will be 100% reimbursed for populations defined by vaccination recommendations, via a health insurance care voucher, such as other influenza vaccines,” added the group.
Efluelda is reserved for over 65s, as it has been specifically developed to protect people most at risk of complications.
To this end, it is four times more dosed than the classic vaccine developed by Sanofi against the flu, says Vaxigriptra.
In April 2024, the French health authorities, which the pharmaceutical giant accused of having set a price too low for Efluelda, had announced the stopping of the marketing of this vaccine which continued to be available in more than a dozen countries.
They then did not judge that the vaccine had a convincing interest in relation to other vaccines, and therefore did not recommend it more than the others.
But last May, at the end of a particularly violent epidemic, the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommended favoring two anti-grip vaccines among the oldest, including Efluelda, compared to the injectable vaccines at standard dose.
The Epidemia 2024/2025 of influenza had indeed revealed particularly violent, with a high mortality from previous years, pushing the HAS to revise its position, especially since the vaccines in circulation testified only to limited efficiency in the elderly.
Posted on July 24 at 12:02 p.m. AFP
