Act of vandalism against a vaccination center near Toulouse: 3,500 doses destroyed – LCI

On the night of Monday to Tuesday, the vaccination center of Saint-Orens-de-Gameville, in Haute-Garonne, was turned upside down. 3,500 doses were destroyed in particular, i.e. the equivalent “almost a week of vaccination”.

“When the guards arrived this morning at seven o’clock, they came in and they found all the vials on the ground”, tells the first deputy to the mayor Jean-Pierre Godefroy. According to The Midday Dispatchshortly after midnight, several individuals entered the vaccination center, breaking the front door of the building, probably using pétanque balls.

They then take all the doses out of the fridge where they were kept, and, like syringes, spill them on the ground. Computers were also broken.

“I do not agree that we disagree, I believe that there are limits not to be crossed. There, we are endangering the lives of a certain number of people who wanted to be vaccinated and who cannot “, describes Jean-Pierre Godefroy. A complaint has been lodged by the town hall and the investigation is underway. For the moment, the perpetrators of the attack are not known and no inscriptions or claims have been observed on the spot.

Faced with the damage, the center was closed for the day. The appointments that were scheduled for Tuesday have, for the most part, been redirected to the vaccination center of Labège. However, the prefecture has announced that it will reopen on Wednesday. “thanks to the mobilization of all the actors involved in the vaccination campaign”.

“The ARS, which we contacted this morning urgently, will obviously send us back the doses tomorrow. The quantity, for the moment, we do not have, but enough to hold for several days”, assures Cécile Henry, assistant to the general manager of city services.

The prefect of the Occitanie and Haute-Garonne region, Etienne Guyot, the director general of ARS Occitanie Pierre Ricordeau and the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin condemned this act. The prefecture notably recalled that “vaccination is our main tool to fight the epidemic”.

On August 11, Gérald Darmanin had already called on the prefects to strengthen the “surveillance” vaccination centers and pharmacies, targets of repeated malicious acts in the midst of protest against the generalization of the health pass. Following this incident in Saint-Orens-de-Gameville, a security guard will now monitor the center 24 hours a day.