Britain has “more than enough” Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to cover all under-30s and the decision to offer them an alternative to the AstraZeneca jab won’t affect the speed of the rollout, Matt Hancock declared today.
UK has enough Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to cover all under-30s, says health secretary
STEPANAKERT, APRIL 8, ARTSAKHPRESS: The health secretary said the UK is still “on track” to hit its target of offering all adults the shot by the end of July and “we are in good shape” on future supply of doses, The Sun reported.
And he said yesterday’s decision by the MHRA to offer younger people a choice of vaccine over “very rare” blood clots linked to the AZ jab should give people confidence in Britain’s “world class” safety regulation.
Mr Hancock said the risk of suffering such a side-effect is around four in a million - the same as taking a long-haul flight.
The health secretary said of the just over 10 million under-30s, 1.6 million have already had their first jab.
He added there is “no evidence” of clotting occurring after the second dose, so all of those should confidently go on to take it.
Mr Hancock said: “We have more than enough Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to cover all of the remaining 8.5 million people aged between 18 and 29 if necessary.
“It’s some time until we’ll get onto that cohort. We’ll make sure they have the option of having the Pfizer or Moderna jab if they want to.
“We have large numbers of jabs coming on stream. We have 40 million Pfizer jabs in production, we have 17 million Moderna jabs that are coming through.
“We’ve got more than enough jabs and we are on track to hit the target that we’ve set that we will ensure every adult in the UK is offered the jab by the end of July.”
