Third Covid vaccine for over-50s before winter

Everyone aged over 50 in Britain will be offered a third COVID-19 vaccination jab in the autumn in an attempt to eradicate the threat from the infection entirely by Christmas, Report informs, citing The Times.

Trials of two options are underway, supervised by Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England. The first involves vaccines specifically modified to tackle new variants. In contrast, the second is for the third shot of one of the three versions already in use - Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca, or Moderna, The Times reported.

Early findings from trials have raised hopes in the Government that the two approaches can nullify the threat from existing and new variants, it is understood.

It is also believed that only higher-risk Britons such as those over 50 and those with underlying health conditions will need the third jab. One possible way of administering the shot would be alongside the annual flu jab, with separate injections given in each arm.

A senior government minister said: 'We will have a lot to say about the booster program soon. It's looking positive so far.

'We think that the level of protection in the population to any variant will be so high that by Christmas, Covid-19 should have just faded away into the background like any other illness in circulation. So much so that we don't think there will be any need to give a booster shot to younger people because the transmission will have got so low.'

A total of more than 34.6 million people in Britain have been given a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and government statistics showed on Tuesday.

Britain, which has a population of 67 million, has deals for over 510 million doses of eight different COVID-19 vaccines, some of which remain under development.