Free flu jabs and Covid boosters will not be offered to nearly 12 million Britons this winter, as a new variant of the coronavirus disease sweeps the UK.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on Tuesday issued its NHS guidance on which groups of people will be eligible for its free vaccination programme, announcing that otherwise healthy Britons between the ages of 50 and 64 will no longer receive free Covid-19 booster doses.
The JCVI said its advice was now to offer the vaccine to “those at high risk of serious disease” who are “most likely to benefit from” it, including residents in a care home for older adults, people over the age of 65, those aged six months to 64 in clinical risk groups, frontline health and social care workers, people aged 12 to 64 who are carers or household contacts of people with immunosuppression.
The Department for Health and Social Care confirmed it had accepted the latest guidance.
The JCVI previously issued similar guidance for the flu jab this winter, which means that 12 million people are no longer eligible for the free vaccines.
Since the Covid vaccines are not available privately in the UK, those excluded from the scheme will not be able to buy them either.
Commenting on the new vaccine guidelines, the chair of the Covid-19 immunisation on JCVI, professor Wei Shen Lim said: “The autumn booster programme will continue to focus on those at greatest risk of getting seriously ill. These persons will benefit the most from a booster vaccination.
“It is important that everyone who is eligible takes up a booster this autumn – helping to prevent them from hospitalisations and deaths arising from the virus over the winter months.”
The new advice comes as a senior health official warned Covid “has not gone away”.
Director of public health programmes at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Dr Mary Ramsay said: “The Covid-19 virus has not gone away and we expect to see it circulating more widely over the winter months with the numbers of people getting ill increasing.
“The booster is being offered to those at higher risk of severe illness and by taking up the booster vaccine this autumn, you will increase your protection ahead of winter, when respiratory viruses are typically at their peak.”
The new guidelines follow reports that the NHS will postpone the vaccine rollout to October, to ensure those most at risk of falling sick remain protected throughout the peak winter months in the UK,
