Infectious Diseases: Disease Control

(asked on 17th January 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the UK's readiness for any future pandemic; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact on that readiness of the discontinuance of several of the initiatives of the UK Vaccine Taskforce.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 20th January 2023

The United Kingdom has flexible and well-tested pandemic response capabilities. We are continuously updating our pandemic plans to reflect the latest scientific information and lessons learned from exercises and our response to emergencies, including COVID-19. We cannot perfectly predict the characteristics of a new pandemic pathogen and therefore our pandemic preparedness is an area kept under constant review to ensure readiness.

The UK Vaccine Taskforce’s responsibilities including vaccine supply, onshoring of UK vaccine capability and international engagement are being integrated across Government functions including UK Health Security Agency. As part of our overall pandemic response capabilities the Government has in place an Advanced Purchase Agreement to guarantee access to pandemic specific influenza vaccines, which would likely be available within four to six months after the pandemic has started.

In addition, at the end of December, UK Government and Moderna entered a strategic partnership to set up mRNA research and development and manufacturing facilities in the UK, capable of producing up to 250 million vaccines per year in the event of a pandemic.

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