Nurses prepare the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Sarcelles, France, January 10, 2021. ALAIN JOCARD / AFP
On Thursday, December 4, nearly five years after the start of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign, a French study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has confirmed the safety of mRNA vaccines, which were distributed globally on a massive scale for the first time in 2021.
Receiving a Covid-19 vaccine did not increase the risk of long-term mortality (through March 2025), whether related to Covid-19 or to other conditions, according to the Epi-Phare team – a scientific interest group overseen by the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (ANSM) and the French National Health Insurance Fund. "This study helps to put an end to the misinformation spread about mRNA vaccines," said Professor Mahmoud Zureik, a public health expert and director of Epi-Phare. "Providing data on the absence of long-term risks helps strengthen confidence in these vaccines, which will be developed for other viruses and diseases."
Their analysis of data from the French National Health Data System focused on more than 28 million people aged 18 to 59 residing in France as of November 1, 2021, who received healthcare reimbursement in 2020. Among this population, 79% received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine between May and November 2021, which was the period of mass adult vaccination in France, following the implementation of the health pass in June 2021.
