Coronavirus: Vaccination

(asked on 16th July 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his strategy is for ensuring immunocompromised patients have access to treatments that may boost the efficacy of covid-19 vaccines.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 27th July 2021

Immunocompromised patients are a priority cohort for research into therapeutic and prophylaxis treatments such as monoclonal antibody therapies, novel antivirals, and repurposed compounds. Monoclonal antibody treatments could potentially play a complementary role alongside the current vaccines programme in providing protection for those patients who may receive lower protection from vaccination compared to the general population. The Therapeutics Taskforce and the cross-agency United Kingdom-wide group RAPID C-19 are monitoring clinical trials of monoclonal antibody treatments. The National Health Service is preparing to deploy antibody treatments as soon as they become available.

It is not yet possible to determine the exact patients who may be able to benefit from new treatments, as this will depend on results from clinical trials, licensing approvals from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and clinical policies set by NHS England and expert clinicians.

Reticulating Splines