Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has received recent representations from (a) the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and (b) other experts on (i) covid-19 vaccination for the prevention and treatment of long-covid and (ii) whether the covid-19 booster vaccine should be offered to people diagnosed with long covid; and if he will make a statement.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is an independent group of experts who advise the Government health departments in the four nations of the United Kingdom on immunisations and the prevention of infectious disease. On 8 August 2023, the Government accepted advice from the JCVI on who should be offered vaccination in autumn 2023.

The primary aim of the COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of severe illness (hospitalisations and deaths) arising from COVID-19 rather than to treat COVID-19. They are not, therefore, currently recommended for the treatment of Post-COVID Syndrome, otherwise known as long COVID. The JCVI advice is to focus the offer of vaccination on those at greatest risk of serious disease or at high risk of transmitting the disease to vulnerable individuals. For this autumn the eligible groups for vaccination are residents and staff in a care home for older adults, all adults aged 65 years old and over, persons aged six months to 64 years old in a clinical risk group, frontline health and social care workers, persons aged 12 to 64 years old who are household contacts and persons aged 16 to 64 years old who are carers.

The clinical risk groups for COVID-19 vaccination are defined in the UK Health Security Agency’s ‘Green Book’ on vaccines and immunisation Chapter 14a tables 3 and 4. Post-COVID Syndrome is not currently identified by the JCVI as one of these conditions. The JCVI considered post-COVID syndromes when developing advice for autumn 2023. It concluded that case-control studies have provided more robust data than the initial cohort studies, but the high prevalence of the reported persistent symptoms among cases and controls complicates any firm attribution of causality to the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. Until better data is available, the impact of vaccination on the risk, progression, and outcome of post-COVID syndromes remains difficult to assess or quantify objectively. This has been the only recent advice received from JCVI on long COVID.

To support individuals with long COVID, NHS England has set out a long COVID action plan, including establishing a nationwide network of specialist clinics. Anyone who is concerned about ongoing symptoms following COVID-19 can find information and advice on the ‘NHS Your COVID Recovery’ website.

The JCVI will continue to review evidence and will provide further advice regarding future vaccination programmes in due course.