Yahoo News There’s still ‘a high level of uncertainty’ on autumn booster Covid jabs, warns vaccines adviser
There is still "a high level of uncertainty" over whether booster vaccinations will be needed this autumn, a vaccines adviser has said.
Professor Adam Finn, from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said booster vaccines to protect against coronavirus could be needed to avoid “the risk of a winter surge”.
He added this could be primarily needed for “the people who had the vaccine (the) longest time ago and who are at highest risk of getting seriously ill when they get infected.”
"So that would include the very elderly and potentially healthcare workers as well, who got the vaccines earlier on in the year,” Prof Finn told Sky News.
“So I don’t think this is a certainty yet, but I think there’s a high probability that at least some boosting will need to go on this winter."
He said experts do not know for certain whether everybody will need a vaccination. He added: "We will learn as we go along."
It comes after health leaders and NHS trusts urged the government to develop a plan for the autumn booster jab rollout.
Chris Hopson, who is the head of NHS Providers, and Royal College of GPs chairman Martin Marshall said a plan is needed in a bid to administer jabs in the autumn.
They 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 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.
"We cannot just carry on as we are, with an emergency response," they said.
Linking the Covid and flu vaccine rollouts needed to be investigated more, the pair added.
Mr Hopson told the BBC: "Since flu jabs start in September we need ministers and the JCVI 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."
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