MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th February, 2021) Health leaders in the United Kingdom are planning to offer booster shots that will offer protection against new COVID-19 variants this coming fall, England's deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said Monday.
Van-Tam was asked during a government press briefing whether public health officials would alter the dosing regimen of the current mass vaccination program to offer greater protection against new highly infectious variants.
"The notion ... of adjusting the second dose to work more effectively is probably not one that's realistic, but an autumn booster, if required, is very much on our radar," Van-Tam said.
During the same briefing, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that the UK had secured a deal with German firm CureVac for 50 million doses of vaccines that will offer protection against new coronavirus disease strains.
The UK government has faced pressure from opposition members of parliament over the decision not to close the country's borders upon the discovery of a highly infectious COVID-19 variant that originated in South Africa.
Earlier on Monday, health officials said that only 147 cases of the South African variant have been confirmed in the UK to date, and Van-Tam said there was little chance of it becoming the dominant COVID-19 strain.
"Early data ... does not suggest that the South African variant has a distinct transmissibility advantage over our current virus, and because of that, there is no reason to think that the South African variant will catch up or overtake our current virus in the next few months," England's deputy chief medical officer remarked.
Since the start of the pandemic, the UK's Department of Health and Social Care has registered more than 3.9 million positive tests for COVID-19, including the 14,104 new cases confirmed on Monday.
Nearly one in four adults in the UK, more than 12.2 million people in total, have received their first vaccine shot since the rollout of the country's mass immunization program, according to government data.
