Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government’s covid-19 vaccine distribution strategy takes into account whether certain covid-19 vaccines should be prioritised for certain groups.

The Government has now accepted the recommendations from the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to authorise three COVID-19 vaccines for use from Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford University/AstraZeneca, and Moderna. This follows months of rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of the data by experts at the MHRA who have concluded that both vaccines met its strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.

The National Health Service began to deploy the AstraZeneca vaccine from the week commencing 4 January. Through the Vaccines Taskforce, we have 100 million doses ordered for delivery over the coming months of this particular COVID-19 vaccine, enough to vaccinate millions of people.

Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines have proven in clinical trials to give very high protection against severe disease, which is the primary aim of the first phase of the programme and both vaccines have demonstrated good safety profiles. The logistical challenges posed by the storage and distribution requirements for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine mean that in some populations, the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine is the only vaccine which can be deployed rapidly and without substantial vaccine wastage. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation does not advise a preference for either vaccine in any specific population. For operational, logistical and programmatic reasons, such as to enable more extensive and timely vaccine coverage, one vaccine may be offered in certain settings in preference over another vaccine.