Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he made of the World Health Organisation’s recommendations that two covid-19 vaccination doses should be administered within 42 days when deciding that the UK’s limit should be extended to 84 days.

Interim recommendations issued by the World Health Organization on 10 February 2021 on the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine concluded that vaccine efficacy tended to be higher when the interval between doses was longer, together with the finding of higher antibody levels with increasing inter-dose interval. This supports the conclusion that longer dose intervals are associated with greater vaccine efficacy.

The decision to extend the dosing interval in the United Kingdom was based on a range of scientific and public health input and evidence. This included the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the UK Chief Medical Officers. Experts concluded that the best way to save lives with a limited supply of vaccine was to prioritise the first doses of vaccine for as many people as possible on the priority list, to protect the greatest number of at-risk people in the shortest possible time.