The UK will look to become the first country to make the Chinese coronavirus an endemic disease by introducing annual vaccine booster shots, a government minister has said.
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi — who served as the nation’s vaccine minister until September, — said that coronavirus vaccines will likely need to become an annual programme, like the flu shot.
“Ultimately our plan, we will, I hope, be the first major economy to transition from pandemic to endemic and have an annual vaccination programme,” Zahawi told The Sun.
On top of the need for yearly vaccinations, the Education Secretary said that mask-wearing may once again become compulsory for schoolchildren in order to keep schools open.
“It’s inconvenient but a small price to pay to keep schools open. We absolutely do not want to close them,” he said.
Warwick University Professor Mike Tildesley, who serves on the government’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M), echoed the call for annual vaccinations for the Wuhan virus.
“It’s possible that every year… we’re having to go out and get our Covid jabs in the same way a lot of people are currently getting their flu jabs,” he said in comments reported by The Telegraph.
The move to make booster shots an annual affair has yet to be confirmed by Downing Street, however, the government currently undertaking a full-court press effort to encourage people to take their third shot of the vaccine.
It comes as the government is reportedly planning on altering the definition of “fully vaccinated” to mean three doses of a vaccine rather than the current standard of two jabs.
The change in the definition would mean that citizens travelling abroad would still face quarantine restrictions if they only have had two doses of the vaccine. To date, over ten million people in England have taken a booster shot, representing about one-fifth of the population.
There have been calls from the pharmaceutical industry in America to make the COVID jab an annual occurrence, with the heads of both Moderna and Pfizer backing such a scheme.
Last month, the chairman and co-founder of the American vaccine-producing firm Moderna, Noubar Afeyan said that there may be a “continuous need” for booster shots going forward.
The Moderna chief said that it could vary from an annual basis to every few years depending on the severity and spread of variants of the Chinese virus.
The CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla said in April that coronavirus booster shots will become like the flu shot, saying: “In a year, you will have to go and get your annual shot for Covid to be protected.”
There has been some disagreement on the effectiveness and safety of offering booster shots, however, with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted down a proposal in September to provide the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus booster vaccine to most Americans. The FDA did approve booster shots for the elderly and those at high risk from the virus.
The World Health Organization has also opposed rolling out booster shots, arguing that vaccines should be sent to poor countries before offering a third dose to people in the First World.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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