Confirmed: 16 and 17 year olds will now be invited for Covid vaccine
Teenagers aged 16 and 17 across the UK will be given the green light to get vaccinated against coronavirus very shortly.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has approved the move and the UK and devolved nations’ health administrations will begin the rollout shortly.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, said there was “no time to waste” in starting the extension of the vaccination programme to 16 and 17-year-olds.
“Children are going to start going back to colleges and sixths forms from September, and in Scotland that will be slightly earlier, so there is no time to waste in getting on with this,” he told a press conference today
Dr June Raine, chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), has told a Downing Street briefing that the decision to vaccinate teenagers came following “rigorously reviewed” trials in children and young people.
Raine said: “All of this shows (the vaccine) is effective in the same way as we see in adults aged 16 to 25.”
Ministers are keen that older teenagers are vaccinated before they return to school and college in the September.
“Late teens are some of the most socially active members of society so if we can cut that transmission, it can only be a good thing,” a source told the Sun.