EFA member AFPRAL (in French, l’Association Française pour la Prévention des Allergies) launched in January a campaign defending the reimbursement for allergy desensitisation treatments.
French health public institutions plan to lower the reimbursement rate of APSI desensitization treatments for rhinitis, rhinoconjunctivitis and allergic asthma, nowadays refunded on a 65% basis. But the health authority institution HAS (in French, Haute Autorité de la Santé) is planning to turn it down to 15%.
AFPRAL responded to the public consultation by fiercely opposing this HAS recommendation. The new measure would mean French citizens who dont have their own insurance and / or have started the desensitization “will have to choose between health and money”, AFPRAL says.
To mobilize citizens, health professionals and patients, AFPRAL together with Asthme & Allergies wrote a letter to oppose and organised this January a Campaign called “To maintain allergic desensitisation accessible”. A thunderclap was organized on the problem of public health and access to care and more than 100,000 people joined.
AFPRAL has written a letter for the media and has joined forces with the French federation of allergology to oppose massively this project.
Besides, a survey was conducted among allergic patients to combat this threat because the high authority of health’s position was that allergic rhinitis is not important for the health of the French