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he Health Secretary has confirmed preparations are underway to offer Covid booster shots to the UK from next month, but a leading vaccine expert has suggested they are not needed.
Sajid Javid say it Government awaits the opinion of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) but indicated that the plan would likely be for those over 50 to be offered a Covid-19 booster vaccine alongside a vaccine against influenza.
He said those who received their vaccine when the vaccine rollout began in December last year will be given priority.
Speaking during a visit to a hospital in Milton keynes On Tuesday, he said: “Regarding the booster injections, we are awaiting the final opinion from JCVI, this is our group of independent clinical advisers, and when we get that opinion, we can start the booster program, but i anticipate it will start in early september so i am already making plans for this.
He said the vaccination program had created a “wall of defense”.
He said: “It’s drastically reduced hospitalizations, deaths from Covid are thankfully low and it’s because of our vaccination program.”
the health department said three-quarters of adults in the UK have now received both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, which Boris Johnson hailed as a “huge national achievement”.
A total of 86,780,455 doses were administered in the UK, with 47,091,889 people receiving a first dose (89%) and 39,688,566 people receiving both doses (75%), the department said.
But Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who played a key role in the development of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, said any decrease in the protection provided by the vaccines would be “gradual” and would be detected quickly by UK surveillance systems, adding that “there is ‘no reason to panic right now’.
Asked about the potential fall recall campaign, ahead of Mr Javid’s comments, Sir Andrew told the all-party parliamentary group on the coronavirus: “The decision to step up or not should be scientifically motivated.”
He said the data suggests the vaccines are resistant to the virus that causes Covid-19 and protect the double blow from serious illness and death.
He said this was not the case as we “come to the end of September and suddenly find that the pandemic is starting again”, and added that if there was a “drop in protection” it would happen gradually and “to a point where we can pick it up and be able to respond.”
And Sir Andrew has warned that rolling out booster doses when other parts of the world still don’t have one doesn’t look good.
He told a session of the group of parliamentarians: “The prospect of a major recall program in the UK is really difficult.
“Both what we’re talking about in terms of what would be moral failure without a dose in many parts of the world and three doses here.
“So there is that aspect.
“But there is also the message, because it says to other countries’ well, if the UK needs three doses, we need three doses”.
“And so it has a huge implication for sucking even more doses out of the system.”
Health officials have already set a schedule for a possible recall campaign, saying all over 50s and clinically vulnerable people could be offered a third dose as well as a flu shot between September and mid -December.
Dr Gregg Gonsalves, associate professor of epidemiology at Yale University, told the session that countries should prioritize vulnerable people in other parts of the world before considering recall programs.
He said, “Every country in the world that’s sitting on doses has to get them on a plane and get them to the places that need them now.
“You have vaccinated most people in the UK.
“If we want to empower people in the UK and US before the rest of the world, we really have to ask ourselves what we do and who we do it for. “
Dr Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the Alliance for Vaccine Delivery in Africa for Covid-19 and former Nigeria’s chief humanitarian coordinator, said, although there is “admiration and respect” for the work from scientists in the UK and institutions like the NHS, there has been “serious damage to the reputation” politically and diplomatically with regard to vaccine fairness.
She called on the UK to engage more with world leaders, telling the parliamentary session: G7 and to engage with leaders of low and middle income countries around the world.
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