GET YOUR COVID JAB AT THE VET

String of professions to receive specialist training

THOUSANDS of physiotherapists, dentists and even vets are to be trained to give injections in time for the approval of the first Covid vaccination.

The radical plan is part of a huge effort to get millions of vaccines ‘into British arms’ as soon as the first definitive trial results come in, officials said last night.

Occupational therapists, student nurses and midwives will also be recruited, alongside the many doctors who do not usually give injections.

The additional staff will also be used to give flu jabs in what will be the biggest influenza vaccination campaign in the history of the NHS.

The Government also yesterday announced emergency measures to allow any Covid jab to be given before Christmas without a formal European licence, if it is proven to work by then.

Sources last night said the chance of having mass vaccination in place before the end of this year is ‘small – but plausible’. ‘If the priority is to save thousands of lives because we have thousands of vaccines, we need to get them into British arms as fast as possible,’ a senior official said.

‘The absolute commitment is going to be that whoever does this is going to be properly trained and properly supervised. But giving an injection is not clinically a difficult procedure to do, and there are a wide variety of health care professionals who could easily be trained to give such a vaccine.’

The new measures will cut red tape to ensure the first vaccine proven to work will be given emergency approval by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The Gov ernment has secured supplies of six different vaccines currently under development – a potential of 340million doses.

Ministers do not expect all six vaccines to succeed.

But if any are proved to work before the end of 2020, the new measures bolster the MHRA’s ability to approve for emergency use, circumventing the normal route of requiring a licence by the European Medicines Agency.

Any trial result that comes in 2021 will be after Brexit is completed, at which point the MHRA will have the ability to approve vaccines in any case.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, said: ‘We are making progress in developing Covid-19 vaccines which we hope will be important in saving lives, protecting healthcare workers and returning to normal in future.

‘If we develop effective vaccines, it’s important we make them available to patients as quickly as possible but only once strict safety standards have been met. The proposals consulted on today suggest ways to improve access and ensure as many people are protected from Covid-19 and flu as possible without sacrificing the absolute need to ensure that any vaccine used is both safe and effective.’

The MHRA already has the power to grant an unlicensed medicine or a vaccine temporary authorisation where a product is proven to be safe and effective and is in the best interest of the patient on the basis of available evidence.

The new measures – involving an amendment to the Human Medicine Regulations 2012 – shore up that power. A three-week consultation was launched yesterday to seek opinions on such a move.

Professor Andrew Pollard of Oxford University, who is leading the group making the main contender to be the first Covid vaccine, has said it is ‘just possible’ there may be enough clinical trial data to put before the regulators this year.

‘Save thousands of lives’