The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has announced that the booster jab rollout has now been extended to those who are aged over 40.
The booster jab will be offered six months after the over-40s have had their second dose.
Results from the first real-world study by the UK Health Security Agency WHICH said two week after having the booster jab the protection is 94% with Pfizer and 93.1% with people who have had the AstraZeneca dose.
Professor Wei Shen Lim, chair of COVID-19 immunisation at the JCVI, said, “Booster vaccine doses in more vulnerable adults, and second vaccine doses in 16 – 17 year olds are important ways to increase our protection against COVID-19 infection and severe disease. These vaccinations will also help extend our protection into 2022.
“If you are eligible, please make sure to have these vaccines and keep yourselves protected as we head into winter.”
Dr June Raine, chief executive of the MHRA, said, “Our safety monitoring to date shows that COVID-19 vaccines continue to have a positive safety profile for the majority of people. The vast majority of reactions which are reported relate to expected side-effects such as injection site reactions and flu-like symptoms, as was seen in our initial assessment.
“Our proactive monitoring of the safety of booster doses does not raise any new concerns.
“We also welcome the recommendation for 16 to 17-year-olds to come forward and have a second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. People can be reassured that when we gave approval for the Pfizer vaccine for those 16 years and over in December 2020, we had thoroughly reviewed all the clinical trial data.
“We have continued to carefully scrutinise all the data we have available to us and our robust surveillance programme includes monitoring all suspected reactions for adolescents as well as adults. We ensure all suspected reports are carefully followed up.”
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