Vaccine supply issues could result in the UK’s vaccination programme being “delayed slightly”, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has said.
However, Professor Jeremy Brown said due to the vaccination programme being “ahead of schedule” it will likely only fall back to the original timetable.
He told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: “It does look like we have been making a vaccine programme that is doing almost five million a week, which would be a fantastic result if we could maintain that.
“But it has always been the supply of vaccine that has been the concern that might delay things, and, yes, I suspect our vaccine programme will be delayed slightly compared to where we thought it might have been a few weeks ago.
“But then we are then ahead of schedule, so we are probably going to fall back to the original schedule and end up with everyone who is an adult being offered a vaccine by towards the middle to end of the summer.”
Five million doses of vaccine destined for the UK have been delayed in India.
Another 1.7million doses are having to be retested.
And the European Union has threatened to block the supply of vaccine from the EU to the UK.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy, on vaccine exports, said: “I would urge the European Commission to calm down the language, cool the rhetoric and let’s try to work together to get through this crisis.”
On international holidays, Ms Nandy said caution is needed as she told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “I think the Government is right to say we should be guided by the science.
“I’ve been troubled by the fact the Prime Minister privately seems to be saying to some of his rebels he’s keen to get this done quickly.
“We do need to be careful, we do need to be cautious and, frankly, I’ve not booked a foreign holiday for this summer and I won’t be doing so because I don’t think we’re there yet.”
Ms Nandy said there are powers in the Coronavirus Act which need to be debated to assess if they are necessary.
She went on: “What the vote is this week is about the road map, about easing the road map, it’s about statutory sick pay, it’s about the ban on evictions, all measures that we’ve pushed for, we certainly won’t be standing in the way of the Government in getting this legislation passed.”
