The UK has secured an extra 60 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to support the Covid-19 booster programme, the Department of Health has announced.
The government's Vaccines Taskforce purchased the additional jabs to protect the most vulnerable ahead of winter.
The programme is set to begin in the autumn and the extra doses will be used alongside other approved vaccines.
It comes as new data from Public Health England shows that one dose of a coronavirus vaccine reduces household transmission of the virus by up to half.
Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “Our vaccination programme is bringing back our freedom, but the biggest risk to that progress is the risk posed by a new variant.
“We're working on our plans for booster shots, which are the best way to keep us safe and free while we get this disease under control across the whole world.
“These further 60 million doses will be used, alongside others, as part of our booster programme from later this year, so we can protect the progress that we’ve all made."
The government will publish more detail on the booster programme, with the final policy informed by advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), along with clinical trial results.
Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said: “We are doing everything we can to make sure the most vulnerable are protected from Covid-19 now and in the future.
“Our brilliant Vaccines Taskforce has secured an extra 60 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines to support our booster programme, which will be developed in line with the advice of our experts.
“In the meantime, we are making great progress with our vaccination rollout and I urge everybody to get their vaccines as soon as they are eligible.”
Overall, the UK has secured access to 517 million doses of eight Covid-19 vaccines. These are:
- Pfizer/BioNTech for 100 million doses – including the additional 60 million doses
- Oxford/AstraZeneca for 100 million doses
- Moderna for 17 million doses
- Janssen for 30 million doses
- Novavax for 60 million doses
- Valneva for 100 million doses
- GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur for 60 million doses
- CureVac for 50 million doses
Health services across the UK have now administered a total of 47,540,984 million vaccines between December 8 and April 27.
This includes 33,959,908 million people with their first dose (64.5 per cent of all adults) and 13,581,076 million with their second (25.8 per cent of all adults).
On Tuesday, healthy adults aged 42 and over were invited to book their Covid jab through the national booking service - just one day after those aged 44 and over were being invited.
