Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to monitor the level of antibodies in clinically extremely vulnerable people who have had two doses of the covid-19 vaccine but, as a result of their condition or medication, might be expected to respond poorly to the vaccination.

Public Health England has been monitoring the effectiveness of vaccinations in clinical risk groups which will include those with immunosuppression.

From the evaluation of the vaccine programme, the data shows that completion of the two dose schedule correlates well with protection from both disease and severe outcomes, including hospitalisation and death.

Virus Watch data, supported by the United Kingdom Research and Innovation and National Institute for Health Research COVID-19 rapid response initiative and the antibody testing team in NHS Test and Trace, provided information regarding patients antibodies which included immunocompromised patients as part of their cohort. This suggests some protection against COVID-19, but is only one measure of protection and does not look at cellular immunity which is important in terms of long-term immunity.