Jab logistics could force patients to make two trips

NORTHUMBERLAND faces a postcode lottery over whether Covid and flu jabs will be given at the same time.

Earlier this month, a major study into the two vaccines suggested both could be administered together without serious risk.

But health chiefs for the county have admitted the realities of such a rollout on the ground will mean most will have to make two trips for their immunisation booster this winter.

“The Covid vaccines coming into the system are not necessarily coming in in-line with the flu vaccines,” said Graham Syers, a GP and vice chairman of Northumberland County Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board.

“[You shouldn’t] delay giving one for the sake of not having the other, so if there’s flu vaccines available for someone in your risk cohort, you will be offered and you will be given.

“If it happens that we have the flu vaccines available for a cohort also getting their Covid vaccination, there will be an opportunity to have them both on the same day. But it’s a really difficult logistical exercise at the minute, marrying up the people who have done six months and they’re due their jab and their flu vaccine is available and it will vary from practice to practice across Northumberland.”

Northumberland has topped the rankings for take-up of the Covid-19 vaccine, with more than 81% of those eligible having received at least two doses so far – the highest in England.

The Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has advised that the most at risk from Covid-19 should be prioritised for booster jabs, including:

■ Over-50s and over-16s considered “clinically extremely vulnerable”;

■ Frontline health and social care workers;

■ Anyone living with or in regular contact with “immunosuppressed individuals”; and

■ Anyone living in “residential care homes for older adults”.

The Combining Influenza and Covid-19 Vaccination (ComFluCov) study found that getting a coronavirus and flu jab at the same time was “generally well tolerated” and recommended they be given together “where operationally practical”.

Liz Morgan, the county council’s director of public health, said: “The measures taken by the public health team and NHS have been effective.

“We know the number of deaths have been much less than predicted at the start of the pandemic, [because] people have complied with social distancing, people have used PPE and the NHS has treated people appropriately.

“At the start of the pandemic mistakes were made at a national level, but once people complied with the measures and once people were vaccinated we saw the death rate fall significantly.

“The important thing to stress is vaccination really works – it prevents deaths and hospitalisation and we would encourage everyone to get vaccinated.”

It’s a really difficult logistical exercise ... it will vary from practice to practice Dr Graham Syers on giving out both vaccines