At the beginning of the Covid vaccination rollout, France lagged at the bottom of the class when it came to administering doses – before staging a comeback to have one of the highest vaccination rates in Europe by the summer of 2021.

However, the country seems to have learned its lesson and got off to a better start with the monkeypox vaccine, despite problems in getting appointments in some areas.

Health minister François Braun confirmed on Tuesday, during a trip to a vaccine centre in Montpellier, that France has now administered 50,000 doses of the vaccine – seemingly the highest number in Europe, although not all health agencies publish detailed data on this.

Nous venons de passer le cap des 50 000 personnes vaccinées contre la #monkeypox. Au-delà de la vaccination, je tenais ce matin à rappeler, aux côtés des équipes du CeGIDD de Montpellier, les bons gestes et réflexes de prévention à adopter pour se protéger contre la maladie. pic.twitter.com/blgHm24Zov

— François Braun (@FrcsBraun) August 23, 2022

Since July, France has offered the vaccine free of charge to the following groups;

• Men who sleep with men and have multiple sexual partners
• Transgender people with multiple sexual partners
• Sex workers 
• People frequenting places where people go to find sex
• Contact cases of monkeypox patients
• Healthcare workers who have exposed to monkeypox cases 

There are now 118 locations across the country that can administer the vaccine, including a ‘vaccinedrome’ in the greater Paris region. 

The vaccine centres tend to be based in cities and some people in rural France have reported having to travel long distances to access a vaccine. 

Since the start of the European outbreak in 2022, 19,000 cases have been confirmed in Europe with the highest number of cases recorded in Spain and the UK, and two deaths reported in Spain.