Flu Vaccines and COVID Booster Shots Brought Forward Due to New Variant

Members of the public receive their COVID-19 vaccine or booster at a NHS (National Health Service) bus outside an Asda Supermarket in the town of Farnworth, near Manchester in north-west England on Dec. 20, 2021. Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images

England’s autumn vaccination campaign for flu and COVID-19 booster is set to begin in 11 days, about a month earlier than planned because of a new variant of COVID-19, the government said on Wednesday.

Health Minister Maria Caulfield said it “makes sense” to bring forward the campaign so the most vulnerable can be more protected.

She encouraged those who get an invitation to “come forward as soon as possible.”

Little is known about BA.2.86, the Omicron subvariant that prompted the move. Health officials are monitoring it because the number of mutations can potentially make it highly transmissible and better at evading immunity.

The vaccination campaign will start with adult care home residents and those most at risk, the Department of Health and Social Care said.

The autumn jabs will be available for everyone aged 65 and over, residents and staff in older adult care homes, front-line health and social care workers, people six months and over in a clinical risk group, people 12 and over who live with an immunosuppressed person, and unpaid carers who are 16 and over.

The vaccinations were previously set to begin in early October so the effectiveness of the shots won’t wane much before the winter season.

In light of the detection of BA.2.86, The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has suggested that “speeding up the autumn vaccine programme will deliver greater protection, supporting those at greatest risk of severe illness, and reducing the potential impact on the NHS,” the government said.

Mutation On Par With Omicron

BA.2.86, nicknamed Pirola variant, has not been classified as a variant of concern but it’s closely monitored by British and international health officials.

While Omicron has had many descendants since its emergence, Pirola piqued the interest of scientists because of the number of mutations on its spike protein, the part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that latches onto host cells and initiates infection.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said there have been roughly as many changes in BA.2.86 compared to the most recent lineages as those found between the original Omicron and Delta.

The CDC said as of Aug. 23, nine cases had been detected and the variant had been found in a wastewater sample. There had been “no evidence” that this variant had been causing more severe illness, the CDC said.

The subvariant was first detected in England in one person on Aug. 18. It was one of the first six cases detected worldwide by four countries.

Although only one case had been identified, the person didn’t have any recent travel history, suggesting there had been community transmissions, the UKHSA said at the time.

It also said that the rapid emergence of the variant in multiple countries in individuals without travel history suggested that there had been “established international transmission.”

As of Aug. 29, two cases have been identified, according to UKHSA.

It’s too soon to know whether the variant will transmit faster than Omicron did, but the amount have mutations found on its spike proteins has raised the question on how much immunity will work on it.

The CDC’s assessment on Aug. 23 was that the latest vaccine would still be effective at reducing severe disease and hospitalization.

According to the UKHSA’s recent estimates of vaccine effectiveness published before the new variant was found, the effectiveness of the new booster against hospitalisation this winter maybe 40 percent at the end of the first month, 50 percent by the second month, before falling back to 20 percent by the fifth month.

COVID-19 vaccines are also known to have some risks including severe risks such as myocarditis.

According to data released by the NHS Business Services Authority, as of July 25, some 6,685 claims in relation to COVID-19 vaccines had been made to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), which compensates those who are at least 60 percent disabled by vaccines.

Of all the claims, 131 were successful, 2,410 were rejected, 311 applicants requested a mandatory reversal of a rejection and fewer than five of these rejections were reversed as a result.

UK authorities routinely use “fewer than five” to describe any number between one and five to help protect the anonymity of individuals.

An earlier freedom of information release show the vast majority of the VDPS payment were granted to recipients of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which is no longer available in the UK, and fewer than five successful claims had been made against the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as of July 11.