At last! Turbo booster for vaccine after rollout chaos

RegulatoRS are set to significantly speed up the approval of batches of vaccines in a major boost to the drive to immunise Britain, the Mail can reveal.

amid mounting concern over the sluggish pace of the rollout, sources confirmed the batch testing process – which so far has taken up to 20 days at a time – will now be cut to just four days.

the medicines regulator is also set to receive additional manpower and adopt far quicker procedures in a bid to overcome one of the biggest hurdles to accelerating mass vaccination.

Meanwhile, it emerged last night that regulators have now approved a second batch of the crucial oxford jab containing another 500,000 doses – taking supplies beyond one million. Some of these will now be made available in gP surgeries from today.

Before yesterday, only a single batch of the oxford/astraZeneca jab had been approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory agency (MHRa). the oxford vaccine is crucial because it is much easier to distribute than the Pfizer version and it does not require transportation at minus 70C.

the government has come under pressure in recent days over the slow and sometimeschaotic start to the vaccination programme, with tory MPs and doctors questioning why only half a million doses of the oxford vaccine were made available in the first week of deployment – despite promises 30million would be ready by last September.

a government s o ur c e acknowledged yesterday that the initial rollout of the oxford vaccine had gone ‘slowly’, but vowed ‘ a big acceleration’ towards the end of this week.

Doubts over the speed of the vaccination drive have been mounting since the country was plunged i nto another March- style l ockdown on Monday night.

there have been questions over the bureaucracy faced by volunteer vaccinators, supplies of jabs to care homes, the distribution network and particularly over supplies and the length of time it takes for each batch to pass a rigorous control process.

until now, the MHRa’s National Institute for Biological Standards and Control has assessed each batch of vaccines one at a time at its site in Hertfordshire.

the time- consuming process has been blamed for slowing down the deployment of vaccine doses – with only 530,000 of four million available doses of the oxford jab passing checks before last night.

the process has now been altered so that more than one batch can be assessed at once.

this is expected to cut the time it takes to check each batch from up to 20 days to as little as four or five.

an MHRa spokesman said: ‘We are working closely with the manufacturer, astraZeneca, to ensure that batches of the vaccine are released as quickly as possible.

‘Biological medicines such as vaccines are very complex in nature and independent testing, as done by the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, is vital to ensure quality and safety.’

a government s o ur c e acknowledged that the initial rollout of the oxford vaccine had gone ‘slowly’.

But they said that this had been to allow monitoring for any early problems, such as allergic reactions.

‘We had to go slowly at the start,’ the source said. ‘But we are through that process now and you can expect to see a big acceleration towards the end of this week.’

In the Commons yesterday, tory MPs urged the Prime Minister to accelerate the rollout so restrictions can be lifted as soon as possible.

‘Expect to see a big acceleration’