Covid booster jab available for care workers, over 50s and people with health conditions

A third dose of a Covid vaccine will be given to care workers, NHS staff, over-50s, and people with health conditions across the UK from 20 September.

The booster jabs are part of an autumn and winter plan for managing Covid and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has said 30m people should be offered a third dose.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid told MPs in Parliament: "There is evidence that the protection offered by Covid-19 vaccines reduces over time, particularly older people who are at greater risk, so booster doses are an important way of keeping the virus under control for the long term."

The JCVI has advised booster jabs be offered to people more at risk from serious disease, and who were vaccinated during Phase 1 of the vaccine programme, to maintain a high level of protection through the coming winter.

Those eligible for a booster jab include people living in care homes for older adults, frontline care workers and NHS staff, everyone aged 50+ and 16-49 year-olds with underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk of severe COVID-19.

Adult household contacts of immunosuppressed individuals will also be eligible.

As part of separate advice given previously, third vaccine doses have already been rolled out to people with severely weakened immune systems.

The JCVI advises a preference for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the booster programme, regardless of which vaccine brand someone received for their primary doses. The JCVI said booster jabs should be given at least six months after a person had their second dose.

Professor Wei Shen Lim, Chair of COVID-19 Immunisation for the JCVI, said: "The UK’s COVID-19 vaccination programme has been hugely successful in protecting people against hospitalisation and death, and the main aim of the booster programme is to prolong that protection and reduce serious disease as we head towards the colder months.

"Most of these people will also be eligible for the annual flu vaccine and we strongly advise them to take up this offer as well."

The JCVI said administration of the influenza and COVID-19 vaccines is well tolerated with no reduction in immune response to either vaccine.

The latest advice comes as workers will be prevented from entering a care home after 11 November 2021 and forced to leave their jobs unless they have received two doses of the Janssen, Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, or AstraZeneca vaccines.

The Department of Health and Social Care has started a public consultation on its proposals to make Covid vaccination mandatory for all home care workers and NHS staff.

Since the vaccine programme was launched in December 2020, 89 per cent of the population have received a first vaccine dose and 81 per cent have received two doses to date (14 September).