Chikungunya: Why vaccination of over-65s has been stopped, as the epidemic reaches its peak

While the chikungunya epidemic that has been raging on Reunion Island since the beginning of the year is expected to peak in the coming days or weeks, the vaccination campaign launched at the beginning of the month has suffered a major setback. A person over the age of 80 died and two others were hospitalized due to symptoms similar to those of a severe form of chikungunya, a few days after being vaccinated, health authorities learned between April 23 and 25.

It was immediately decided to exclude people over 65 from the vaccination campaign , and to reserve injections exclusively for adults under 65 with comorbidities, according to a reassessment by the High Authority for Health (HAS) made on April 25. But, by fueling the feeling of widespread mistrust towards vaccines inherited from the Covid-19 pandemic, these events are likely to halt a campaign that was already struggling to get off the ground. A missed opportunity, while the epidemic remains "at a high level of transmission" , according to the epidemiological bulletin published Wednesday, April 30 by Public Health France .

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