Key Points

The current health situation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic must not overshadow the importance of other vaccinations in protecting public health, particularly for the most vulnerable, such as infants. Vaccination is a major public health issue and remains the most effective means of prevention against certain serious infections.

The need to curb these infectious diseases has prompted public authorities to make improving vaccination coverage a public health priority and to extend mandatory vaccination to children under 2 years of age. This extension of mandatory vaccination, enacted by the law of December 30, 2017, was implemented for children born on or after January 1, 2018.

• Continued increase in vaccination uptake among infants born on or after January 1, 2018, to whom the expanded vaccination requirement applies:

  • + 4.2 percentage points for the use of the hexavalent vaccine (cohort of children born in 2020: 99.4%)

  • + 0.3 percentage points for vaccination coverage of the first dose of the pneumococcal vaccine (cohort of children born in 2020: 99.7%)

  • + 9.3 percentage points in vaccination coverage for the first dose of the meningococcal C vaccine (cohort of children born in 2020: 87.3%)

• Increase in vaccination coverage among children born before the law took effect

  • +4.9 percentage points for the first dose of the HPV vaccine among 15-year-old girls born in 2005 (33.6%) compared to girls born in 2004 (28.7%)

  • Increase in catch-up vaccination coverage for meningococcal C in all age groups

• Increase in influenza vaccination coverage

  • +7.2 percentage points among people aged 65 and older