Former UK vaccines chief says we need to move from inefficient double-jab to pills or sprays

UK needs to work with EU to develop ‘tweaked’ vaccines to new variants, says Kate Bingham

(PA)

The former head of the UK’s vaccine taskforce has said there needs to be a more efficient way of administering inoculations, including the use of pills, patches, or nasal sprays to speed up the process.

As countries grapple with immunising populations against coronavirus, Kate Bingham added that Britain and the EU needed to collaborate to produce “tweaked” vaccines against new variants that may arise.

She also welcomed the results of trial data from the US company Novavax, which revealed on Thursday evening its coronavirus vaccine is 89.3 per cent effective and will shortly submit data to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for approval.

Responding to a question about the possibility that vaccine rollouts or top-ups against the virus could be required, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We for sure need to be working together [with EU] to develop those tweaked vaccines that will address the new variants, which will inevitably arise because that’s what viruses do is they mutate, and we need to improve the vaccine format.

“Frankly, two injections delivered by health care professionals is not a good way of delivering vaccines. We need to get vaccine formats which are much more scalable and distributable, so whether they are pills or patches or nose sprays.

“We need to find better ways of developing and delivering vaccines and will do that in collaboration just as we’ve been doing it over the last few months.”

In response to her comments, the shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth commented: “Hope this succeeds. Given new variants we are in a race against evolution. Anything that helps us go further and faster can only be a good thing.”

Ms Bingham, who led the government’s efforts to sign contracts for vaccine supply last year, refused to be drawn on the row between Brussels and AstraZeneca over the supply of jabs to the continent and warnings of millions of doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine being blocked from entering the UK, but insisted “trade barriers are not something that we should be considering”.

Speaking on Friday, Ms Bingham stressed that the UK had got ahead in its vaccination supply by beginning production early, saying:  "I'm not going to get into the details of the contacts but one of the things the CEO of AZ (AstraZeneca) did not mention is that we actually started scaling up manufacture of the Oxford vaccine from February.

"So, yes, we signed the contract, or agreed terms with AZ, in May, but actually the work to scale up the manufacturing started months before that, and it is that early work that was done by the industry - voluntarily, not based on contracts or requirements but a voluntary coalition of the different companies.

"That is what has ultimately made the difference as to why we are so far ahead on manufacturing."

Asked about AstraZeneca's dispute with the European Union, Ms Bingham added: "We are interdependent and I don't think that the idea that there are going to be trade barriers is something that we should be considering."