This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Plan needed for autumn booster vaccines
NHS Providers and the Royal College of GPs have urged the government to develop a robust plan for the autumn booster jab rollout.
The two organisations said a plan is needed in a bid to administer jabs in the autumn, adding that it will be ‘really quite challenging’. Chris Hopson, the head of NHS Providers, and Royal College of GPs chairman Martin Marshall said there were many questions that need answering including how long immunity from the original coronavirus jab lasts and whether children will be vaccinated.
Other questions raised from NHS Providers and the RCGP included whether people would get the same vaccine as the original one they got; if tweaking the vaccines for new variants works and whether Covid vaccines will be amended every year.
It has also been suggested that linking the coronavirus and flu vaccine rollouts needed to be investigated but argued that it could make the rollout more complicated.
Hopson told the BBC: "Since flu jabs start in September we need ministers and the JCVI - the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation - to really answer those questions as quickly as possible, so we’re ready to administer the jabs we need to in the autumn. We need to recognise that what comes next is going to be really quite challenging."
The government revealed plans for a booster programme earlier this year but said no final decisions had been made and would depend on the data from ongoing trials. Clinical trials including the UK’s Cov-Boost trial, are currently taking place in England. The first results from the trial are expected in September and will assist the JCVI’s decision on the booster programme.
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