According to the Directorate General of Health, the first two were considered to have been in contact with a monkeypox victim. They were then vaccinated at the Bichat hospital on Friday, May 27, according to our sources. .

According to the Tuesday's opinion by the High Authority for Health, (HAS), "it is a very targeted vaccine which is offered only to people who have had a close contact that is considered to be at high risk", it was recommended.

A man in his thirties living in Paris and the first to be vaccinated told AFP he was the contact case for the first patient confirmed in France on May 20, 2013.

"I met him in Paris on May 14, in the afternoon, in an apartment." He testified that although I didn't have sex, I had three hours of physical contact with the person. He explained that my case was being discussed because I wasn't exposed to sexual relations. This does not make me an orange case, but rather a red one.

France currently has seven cases of monkeypox "proven", Brigitte Bourguignon, the new Health Minister, said Wednesday. She added that France has sufficient smallpox vaccine stocks to provide vaccinations for contact cases. Monkeypox can be incubated for between six and sixteen days. It can also take five to twenty-one day.

HAS recommends that the vaccine be administered "ideally within 4 days of the risky contact, and at maximum 14 days later with a 2-dose schedule spaced twenty-eight day apart".

Monkeypox is a rare, African-based disease that is usually treated spontaneously. There have been several cases in Europe and North America. Human-to-human transmission, according to current knowledge, requires close contact between two persons. It is primarily transmitted via saliva or pus from the skin lesions that form during infection.