Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of clinically extremely vulnerable individuals who do not make antibodies through the vaccinations currently available but who would be protected by pre-exposure prophylaxis from monoclonal antibodies.

No current estimate has been made. However, work is underway with clinical experts to understand the size of the cohort and degree of immune response and determine the potential patient groups which may benefit from pre-exposure prophylaxis monoclonal antibodies.

The OCTAVE study has evaluated the immune responses following COVID-19 vaccination in patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. The initial data from the study showed that approximately 11% of immunocompromised patients fail to generate any antibodies four weeks after two vaccines and 40% of people in the patient groups studied mounted a low serological immune response after two vaccines. Further studies including OCTAVE-DUO will provide evidence on immune response following subsequent vaccine doses. The Department is examining how these results may be used to inform which patient groups could benefit from pre-exposure prophylaxis.