Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing the shingles vaccine to adults aged 65 and over.

The Shingrix programme was recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), to provide better and longer lasting population-level protection from a younger age than the previous Zostavax programme. The Shingrix shingles vaccination programme was introduced from September 2023, to offer two doses of the vaccine to immunocompetent individuals turning 65 and 70 years old, and severely immunosuppressed adults over 50 years old.

A cost-effectiveness review by the JCVI concluded that although the highest monetary benefit would be to provide the Shingrix vaccination at 65 years old, by offering it at 60 years old the highest number of cases would be prevented. For immunosuppressed individuals, Shingrix was determined to be cost-effective between the ages of 50 to 90 years old.

To avoid undue additional pressure on National Health Service delivery services, the Shingrix vaccine will be delivered in a phased approach over 10 years, after which the vaccine would then be offered routinely from 60 years old.