Faced with vaccinodromes in cities, rural pharmacists are asking for a “proximity solution”

Pharmacists and rural mayors on Thursday called on the government to find “local solutions” for vaccination in rural areas, as an “alternative” to vaccinodromes established in urban areas, via community pharmacies for the administration of vaccines From Pfizer and Moderna.

“The government’s vaccination strategy focuses on large cities, at the risk of neglecting the populations of rural areas,” noted the Association of Rural Mayors of France (AMRF) and the Federation of Community Pharmacists (FSPF) in a report. joint press release.

“To collectively win the battle for vaccination, it is imperative to add a local solution for the rural world to this XXL solution (Editor’s note: vaccinodromes) adapted for large urban centers”, they added, recalling that “38% of the French population live in a municipality of less than 3,500 inhabitants ”.

French medical desert

In these territories, the oldest people “are penalized by their distance from hospitals, while they are among the most fragile in the face of the pandemic”, they stressed.

In order to vaccinate the rural population, the AMRF and the FSPF ask that “the network of dispensing pharmacies, distributed in a balanced way on the territory and inclined to be a territorial facilitator in this matter, can administer the vaccines” of Pfizer and Moderna .

“The inhabitants of rural communities are already at a disadvantage in the face of this pandemic, often suffering from the effects of the French medical desert”, recalled Gilles Noël, mayor of Varzy (Nièvre), quoted in the press release.

“Why send them to be vaccinated in large urban centers when their territories are equipped with pharmacies, often the last local health actors still standing!” “, he added.