Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to procure 70,000 additional monkeypox vaccines.

We have procured over 150,000 vaccine doses to date. The UK Health Security Agency’s expert advice, endorsed by Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, is to offer two vaccine doses to a defined high-risk cohort of 111,000 individuals in the United Kingdom. Since August 2022, the safe and clinically effective use of fractional dosing allows one vial of the vaccine to provide three doses. This ensures that we have sufficient doses to deliver the current vaccination strategy in full.