Coronavirus vaccine likely to be limited to the elderly, says top scientist
Rollout of a potential coronavirus vaccine will likely be limited to the most at-risk members of the public, the deputy chief medical officer said today, as the UK braces for a second wave of coronavirus in the winter.
Speaking to a virtual meeting of the Health and Social Care Committee, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam today said: “We may end up in the first instance with a vaccine that is most appropriately targeted and which has a label that restricts its use to a certain population.”
Van-Tam added that regulatory bodies may roll out a potential vaccine to more vulnerable groups such as over-50s or “the elderly”.
“As we know with this disease, the likelihood of death changes markedly with age. And so the risk benefit for a vaccine is likely to be very different by age.”
He added: “We’ll deal with a very large amount of the population who have the mortality loaded against them at the moment.”
It comes as a potential coronavirus vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and pharmaceuticals giant Astrazeneca was yesterday deemed safe and found to induce a “strong response” from the immune system, in a major global breakthrough.
An initial trial of 1,077 people showed that the injection produced antibodies and white blood cells in patients, a new study published in the Lancet medical journal found.
Speaking to the BBC this morning, lead developer of the vaccine Professor Sarah Gilbert said that the vaccine could be rolled out by December if all goes to plan.
However, she cautioned that there was “absolutely no certainty” that this would be the case.
Speaking to the Commons committee today, chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty threw cold water on the possibility, adding that the chances of getting a vaccine by winter were “very low”.
Whitty said: “I want to be very clear we’re incredibly excited by and proud of what the UK has done in leading the way on vaccine science here and on funding vaccines elsewhere… but no one should be under any illusions — the chances of us getting a vaccine by Christmas that is actually highly effective is in my view very low.”
The chief medical officer added that a potential second wave of the virus during the winter months was a “really serious concern,” as the UK still lacks the testing capacity to effectively enforce local lockdowns at the speed required.
Whitty said: “A surge in winter is a really serious concern looking forward [and] where I spend most of my thinking time.”
“We are now much more secure than we were a couple of months ago. But if we have a major surge in the winter that is simultaneous with a major surge… in many other countries, I think it would be foolish to say that the risk of this has completely gone away.”
Speaking to the BBC this afternoon, health secretary Matt Hancock said the government was “working very closely with Astrazeneca” to speed up the development process of the potential vaccine.
Asked if the vaccine would be ready for Christmas, Hancock said: “We’re working very hard on this but… I can’t promise to play Santa.”