Boris Johnson has said there will be no delay to lifting England’s coronavirus lockdown despite a shortfall of vaccine supplies in April.
The prime minister told a televised Downing Street briefing there would be “no change to the next steps of the roadmap” after it was revealed regional NHS leaders had been ordered not to book in healthy under-40s for jabs until May.
Mr Johnson rejected suggestions the disruption to the vaccination programme could require him to slow down his roadmap for the lifting of restrictions, due to be completed by 21 June.
Health secretary Matt Hancock said the shortage next month will be in part because scheduled deliveries of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine from India have been delayed.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the UK’s Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), meanwhile, have both given their backing to the continued use of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The EMA said it had come to a “clear scientific conclusion” that the jab was “safe and effective” and that its benefits in protecting people from Covid-19 outweighed any potential risks. The MHRA said the vaccine was safe and that there was no evidence of a causal link between the jab and blood clotting.
Already, a number of European countries have announced they will resume use of the vaccine.
Germany, France and Italy are expected to resume vaccinating people with the AstraZeneca jab starting Friday. Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands are expected to follow next week, though Spain has said it could exclude some groups.
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