Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has he made of the risk that patients with latex allergies face from the administration of the covid-19 vaccine.

Anyone who has ever had a serious allergic reaction should tell their healthcare professional before they are vaccinated. Serious allergic reactions are rare. If people do have a reaction to the vaccine, it usually happens in minutes. Staff giving the vaccine are trained to deal with allergic reactions and all locations providing vaccinations are required to have anaphylaxis packs on-site, allowed staff to treat them immediately.

As with other vaccination programmes and advised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), gloves are not recommended when administering a vaccine unless persons administering vaccinations have open lesions on their hands or are likely to encounter a patient’s body fluids. Plastic syringes do not contain latex and nor do needles.