Influenza: Vaccination

(asked on 15th July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of bringing forward the start date of the winter Flu vaccine from the usual time of September.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 5th August 2020

It is not possible to bring forward the start date of the seasonal flu vaccination programme, due to the time it takes to produce the flu vaccine.

The manufacturing of the flu vaccines is a complex biological process. In February, each year, the World Health Organization makes recommendations on the composition of the flu vaccine for the northern hemisphere based on its international surveillance programme. It takes six-eight months to manufacture the vaccines and following regulatory clearance they start to become available to service providers at the start of the flu season in September.

Reticulating Splines