A campaign is to begin next week to give booster shots to millions of people who received Covid-19 vaccinations in phase one of the rollout.
Details of the campaign were unveiled by Sajid Javid, who said the programme would strengthen a “wall of defence” against Covid-19 during the winter months – after the government published advice by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
Who is in line to get it?
Boosters in England will be offered to people aged 50 and over, those in care homes, and frontline health and social care workers.
The health secretary has said it is “highly likely” that frontline NHS staff and those in wider social care settings will need to have Covid-19 and flu vaccinations in order to be deployed. These measures are subject to consultation.
Booster Covid-19 vaccines are to begin being offered around the UK from next week.
Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive has confirmed that a Covid booster vaccination programme will start this month but details are yet to be outlined.
What is the medical advice underpinning the offer?
Findings have been set out by the JCVI recommending that booster doses should be administered six months after the second jab.
Data has suggested that protection provided by two shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines wanes within six months.
The new guidance appears to differ from its interim guidance, published in June, which stated that anyone over 16 who qualified for a seasonal flu jab would be included in the booster campaign. This would have included millions of people with asthma.
When there is more data, the JCVI also plans to look at whether boosters should also be offered to healthy people under the age of 50.
How will the vaccines be distributed?
The NHS will contact individuals at the right time and no one needs to come forward at this point, according to Javid.
People will be able to get their Covid and flu vaccines on the same day, preferably with one shot in each arm.
What vaccines are being used?
Pfizer jabs were being recommended as the preferred choice for the booster programme because they were “well-tolerated” and had “a good effect”, according to Prof Wei Shen Lim, chair of the JCVI.
But alternatively a half-dose of Moderna could be administered, he told a Downing Street briefing.
The UK government has said it will buy 60m more doses of Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine in time for the booster programme, bringing its total order of the shot to 100m doses.
Why are mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) vaccines such as Pfizer being recommended and what happens if someone cannot have them?
MRNA vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna – which smuggle genetic material into cells so they can produce the coronavirus spike protein and prime the immune system – are preferable to AstraZeneca for booster doses, according to the JCVI.
While he said that the AstraZeneca vaccine was described as “a very good vaccine for its primary cause,” Lim cited data suggesting that mRNA vaccines “gave a very good boost. And for a range of reasons including simplicity and delivery of the programme, we felt that overall there was a preference for mRNA vaccines for the third booster dose.”
AstraZeneca shots should be considered as boosters for patients who cannot have mRNA jabs, according to the JCVI.
Will those who have had three jabs be treated any differently from those who have had two?
Ministers plan to continue treating those who get a booster shot the same as those who have received two vaccinations.
While a spokesman for Boris Johnson stressed on Tuesday that this should remain the case during autumn and winter, he conceded the government would “need to keep that under review” because of the threat of potentially waning immunity.
Will the booster programme be repeated every year?
Lim said the advice issued on Tuesday did not imply that there would be a recurrent programme of booster doses every six months.
“I don’t think I can say very much about the future booster programmes because we just don’t have the data,” he said.
One other suggestion was that a Covid-19 jab might be combined with a flu jab, particularly for vulnerable people.