Adults over 18 years to be offered COVID-19 booster jab

Following new advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, adults aged 18-39 years, who received their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine no sooner than three months ago, should be eligible to receive a COVID-19 booster jab.

The JCVI recommended expanding booster vaccination eligibility to all adults in the UK in a statement made on 29 November 2021.

The announcement comes in response to the Omicron COVID-19 variant, which is present in the UK. Furthermore, the World Health Organisation has recently labelled Omicron as a variant of concern.

Chair of COVID-19 immunisation for JCVI, Wei Shen Lim, stated: “From what we know about the Omicron variant so far, it may be that the vaccines we have at the moment may be less good than against the current circulating Delta variant. One way of reducing the impact of this mismatch between vaccine and variant is to increase the strength of the immune response provided by the current vaccine.”

Deputy Chief Medical Officer, England, Jonathan Van-Tam, stated: “Whilst we wait for the mist to clear on what this concerning variant actually means, there is no time to delay. It’s our opportunity to get ahead and vaccine boosting is the thing we can do most easily whilst we wait for that ‘science-mist’ to clear.”