Vets are well used to the business of vaccination. "They do it on a daily basis, and their clients are not always happy to cooperate," says Loïc Dombreval, an MP from the ruling LREM party, himself a fully qualified veterinary surgeon.
Nearly 5,000 of Dombreval's colleagues are volunteer members of the "health reserve", a group of medical professionals administered by the national health authorities, to provide emergency assistance at short notice in the wake of disasters and crises.
Loïc Dombreval has written to Health Minister Olivier Véran suggesting that vets could be called upon to make up for any lack of vaccinating personnel.
Je propose à Olivier Véran que les vétérinaires français volontaires puissent vacciner contre la Covid-19, si on manquait de bras.
— Loïc Dombreval 🐾 (@LoicDombreval) March 9, 2021
Les vétérinaires canadiens le font déjà. Les vétérinaires injectent 42 millions de doses de vaccins par an à des patients parfois peu coopératifs 🐈 pic.twitter.com/U2KS4SS8az
Getting those who normally look after animal health involved in the effort to vaccinate the human population could boost the rate of inoculation.
Over the past week, the French vaccination rate has accelerated. About 100,000 doses per day were being administered in the course of last week, with 180,000 on both Friday and Saturday.
According to the latest official statistics, 3.7 million French people – about 6 percent of the population – have received at least one vaccine shot. Nearly two million are fully vaccinated, having received both doses.
Loïc Dombreval points out that thousands of his colleagues volunteered their assistance at the start of the epidemic, and many have been disappointed by the lack of official reaction.
Vets have already been enrolled to help with coronavirus vaccination in Argentina, Canada and several parts of the US.
In both Germany and China, they have been involved in high-level decision making related to the epidemic, because of their experience in treating coronavirus and other epidemic infections among animals.
French animal immunologist Thierry Lafrançois was last month finally asked to join the government's scientific council, the body advising the executive on the Covid-19 crisis.
