Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how the participant requirements for the COV-BOOST trial were decided; and why the exclusion criteria for the COV-BOOST trial includes immunosuppressed people.

It is recognised that individuals with immunosuppression may not have a full immune response to vaccination. To fully understand how COVID-19 vaccines respond as a booster dose they must first be studied in people with fully functioning immune systems. However, there is a breadth of research activity being undertaken, including by the National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation, on COVID-19 vaccine responses in groups of immune suppressed individuals under the National Core Studies’ Immunity and Data and Connectivity programmes.