Covid-19 vaccines may become an annual necessity, Shropshire health boss says
Covid-19 vaccines may become an annual necessity as it is unclear how long they will offer protection for, a health boss at Shropshire’s major hospitals has said.
Like many other diseases, people may need to take an annual coronavirus vaccine once the pandemic has ended to ensure people are protected and another pandemic does not occur.
Speaking about the vaccination programme, Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust’s medical director Dr Arne Rose told its board of directors: “At the moment, SaTH is a lead provider so it’s running almost like an extra division of the trust, together with our partners.
“But over time it will have to be incorporated in the system response. Over time it will become just like flu vaccination where it’s an annual thing that would run largely through primary care, but at the moment there is too much uncertainty and the current cohorts envisage to finish by the end of July.
“At some point between now and then there would be stock take to see where we are with new variants and how frequently will we have to re-vaccinate.
“The other unknown is how long the antibody response and the protection against severe disease and death actually lasts. Nobody knows that right now.”
He said ‘hard to reach’ groups were also being targeted and encouraged to get the jab.
“There are various work streams in the vaccination programme around that,” Dr Rose added.
“It’s important to not compartmentalise groups into certain boxes. We are doing quite well compared to nationally with our BAME [Black, Asian and minority ethnic] population.
“It’s also thinking about patients who are scared to go out and patients who have mental health disorders and homeless people and so on.
“We have already got mobile teams to go into care homes and from GPs to patients who are stuck at home and cannot go out.
"We also have an inpatient team and about four days a week they are now visiting our wards and vaccinating inpatients who are fit to be vaccinated.
Encouraged
"In order to not waste vaccine they will also concentrate on hard to reach members of staff who may need to be encouraged to vaccinate.”
It comes as more than 208,000 people in the county have now been vaccinated, with many patients expected to return soon for their second dose.
Health bosses have issued advice for those needing to attend their second appointment.
People who were not offered a second appointment when booking the first one should be contacted about 11 weeks after their first appointment.
When going for the second appointment, patients are asked to take their ID and the card they were given when they had their first jab.
This details which vaccine you received so that vaccinators can be sure you are receiving the correct second dose.
The NHS is currently asking people to attend the same place for both of their vaccination doses.
