Speculation is growing that Covid jabs may in time become available to buy privately, but whether this means through employers and workplaces remains unclear.
Earlier this month, the government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advised that a more limited Covid-19 booster vaccine programme will be run this autumn compared with last year.
In 2022, all over-50s were able to get a booster jab through the NHS, but the age cut-off for this autumn has been raised to 65s and over.
This autumn’s campaign will also cover care home residents, people aged six months to 64 years in a clinical risk group, frontline health and social care workers, people aged 12 to 64 years who are household contacts of people with immunosuppression, people aged 16 to 64 years who are carers, and staff working in care homes for older adults.
However, according to a report in The Times, a spokesperson for the UK Health Security Agency said it was not against the private provision of vaccinations and boosters in principle.
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“We have spoken to manufacturers we’re in contract with and made it clear we won’t prevent them initiating a private market for Covid-19 vaccines, rather we’d welcome such an innovation in the UK,” the spokesperson reportedly told the paper.
“As far as we’re concerned, the ball is in the court of the manufacturers to develop the market with private healthcare providers,” they added.
This could mean jabs being made available to purchase through private health clinics and pharmacies, much like the annual flu vaccination.
Vaccine manufacturer Moderna also reportedly said it remains open to “exploring the possibility and viability of providing Covid-19 vaccines to healthcare providers for private sales”, even though its priority remains supplying the NHS.
However, the paper warned that the timings might not be feasible to allow this to happen for this autumn’s campaign, and the change, if it does happen, is more likely to be from next year.
It is also unclear whether employers would be able to purchase stocks of the vaccine to offer to their workforces.
Concerns have been growing in recent weeks about the spread of a new variant of the virus, EG.5, or ‘Eris’, an offshoot of Omicron and what this might mean for the autumn and winter. The World Health Organization has classified it as a variant “of interest”.
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