(Reuters) – The NHS England has invited people aged 56 to 59 to schedule COVID-19 vaccines next week, with letters for 850,000 people in that age group arriving on Saturday and another 850,000 due to landing on Monday.
“The latest invitations were sent after more than eight out of 10 people aged 65 to 69 accepted the offer of a jab,” said the National Health Service in an e-mailed statement on Sunday.
“The NHS team vaccinated more than 18 million people across England, which means that more than a third of the adult population has already received the life-saving vaccine.”
Britain’s medical regulator said on Thursday that it would speed up vaccines for coronavirus variants, adding that already authorized vaccine manufacturers would not need further lengthy clinical trials to prove that their adapted vaccines work.
There is concern that some variants, such as those found for the first time in South Africa and Brazil, may reduce the effectiveness of the first generation of COVID-19 vaccines, and manufacturers are looking to adapt their vaccines.
The accelerated process is based on the one used for seasonal flu vaccines each year, said the Health Products and Medicines Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and would be based on robust evidence that injections create an immune response, rather than tests. complete clinical trials.
AstraZeneca PLC, Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc – manufacturers of the three vaccines that the MHRA has approved for use so far – all said they plan to modify their vaccines to deal with the variants this year.
Britain has so far offered pictures taken by AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
Kanishka Singh reporting in Bengaluru; Christopher Cushing’s Edition