Coronavirus vaccinations: the facts

Following months of rigorous clinical trials, the Pfizer/biontech Covid-19 vaccine has been approved for use in the UK by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. This and the other vaccines are a huge step forward in the fight against coronavirus and could save tens of thousands of lives. So is the vaccine safe? Who’ll get it first? And will it mean a return to normal life? The panel of medical experts are here to answer all your questions.

Professor Van-tam If you’re going to prevent transmission you need a vaccine that is taking out the illness and also the asymptomatic infections. There are some signs from Astrazeneca that this might be the case. That does not mean the other vaccines where results have already been announced or that are or are still in development, don’t also reduce transmission; it’s just we don’t know at this point in time. We hope they will because they’ll have a bigger effect if they can take out transmission.

Qare there any side effects?

Dr Ramsay All the side effects are predictable – the kind of thing you get with other vaccines: a sore arm, bit of a temperature or feeling a bit fatigued, so we’re expecting it to have a similar safety profile to other vaccines.

Professor Van-tam Every single vaccine authorised for use in the UK has been authorised by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The three components of authorisation are a safety assessment, an effectiveness assessment and a manufacturing quality assessment – all three need to be ticked before anything is authorised. But there is not a single medicine without side effects. Is it possible that rare side effects could come to light that you’d never pick up in a clinical trial of 40,000-50,000 patients? Yes, it is – but that’s no different from any other medicine.