NHS England will launch its autumn COVID-19 booster rollout in early September, and has outlined its plans to become the ‘first healthcare system in the world’ to use Moderna’s next generation, bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, mRNA-1273.214.
Around 26 million people across England will be eligible for an autumn booster, which the NHS hopes will be the ‘largest and fastest’ vaccine drive in health service history.
Care home residents and people who are housebound will be the first to be vaccinated during the week of 5 September.
The National Booking Service will also open in the same week ahead of the wider rollout, which is due to start on 12 September, with individuals most susceptible to serious illness from COVID-19 and those aged 75 and over invited to book an appointment from that week.
NHS chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, said: “The NHS was the first healthcare system in the world to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine outside of clinical trials, and will now be the first to deliver the new, variant-busting vaccine when the rollout begins at the start of September.”
Moderna’s booster vaccine was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) earlier this month, which based its decision on data from a phase 2/3 trial showing a booster dose of mRNA-1273.214 increased neutralising geometric mean titres against Omicron approximately eight times above baseline levels.
The NHS outlined its plant to offer people the new next generation bivalent vaccine where appropriate and subject to sufficient supply being made available to the NHS.
Currently, the UK’s autumn booster campaign includes everyone aged 50 and over, high-risk people aged five to 49 years old, care home staff, frontline health and social care workers, unpaid carers and household contacts of people with weakened immune systems.
Originally, the autumn booster campaign was due to include all those over the age of 65, rather than all those over the age of 50 but the programme has been expanded in response to the spread of the Omicron variant.
The plans follow the updated advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
Steve Russell, NHS director for vaccinations and screening, said: “This winter will be the first time we see the real effects of both COVID-19 and flu in full circulation as we go about life as normal – and so it is vital that those most susceptible to serious illness from these viruses come forward for the latest jab in order to protect themselves.”