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Vaccine makers have dismissed claims by ministers that the Covid vaccine shortage was “limiting” the inoculation program and insist that millions of doses have already been delivered to the NHS.
It comes after UK ministers and top doctors warned that vaccine shortages are a global problem and a “reality that cannot be discounted.”
Boris Johnson said earlier this week that supply would be the “rate limiting factor” that could hamper the NHS ‘ability to deliver vaccines quickly, not distribute them.
The NHS is currently delivering 250,000 hits a week and is confident that it will be able to exceed two million a week in February. NHS England Medical Director Stephen Powis said: “Our goal is to get people to get the jab as soon as the manufacturers can supply us with that vaccine.”
But both Pfizer and AstraZeneca have insisted there was no problem with the supply, with Pfizer saying it has now shipped millions of doses to the UK, it reports. The Daily Telegraph. These include a million hits that were intended as the second dose for people who have already received their first hit, which will now be delayed after a policy change.
According to the newspaper, more than a million Pfizer injections could be given over the next week, along with 530,000 doses of the Oxford vaccine. The latter received approval for use in the UK on December 30.
By mid-January, two million doses of the Oxford vaccine will be delivered each week, said a member of the Oxford / AstraZeneca team. The times.
The source said that by next week, there will be two million injections ready in total, and the manufacturer plans to “increase it quite quickly” to two million doses per week by the third week of January.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot has said before that the manufacturer could provide “a million doses and more per week.”
The vaccine dispute comes as GPs canceled tens of thousands of appointments for a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on short notice, after government vaccination experts and drug regulators decided to delay the follow-up injection. to 12 weeks after the first dose has been administered. dice.
The policy change is intended to ensure that as many people as possible receive a first dose of any of the approved vaccines, and UK medical directors say the first dose offers “substantial” protection.
