3. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Update on COVID-19 Vaccinations

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:19 pm on 26 January 2021.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:19, 26 January 2021

Thank you. I don't know where you get the 0.1 per cent wastage target. Actually, the fact that we have a wastage rate of less than 1 per cent shows that we have a highly efficient vaccination programme, which is part of what we should take real pride in, that our NHS Wales-led programme is actually achieving. We are publishing from today wastage rates, so you'll get to see on a regular basis how effective and efficient we are being.

When it comes to the approval of other vaccination candidates, I'll just remind the Member and anyone else watching that it's not up to politicians to do this and it's an important part of our system that politicians don't approve vaccination candidates. The independent regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, approve vaccines for use and the basis upon which they can be used. It's an important safeguard in our system. They have to review the data and they determine whether a vaccine is able to be used. It's then up to politicians to make choices on the delivery of those vaccines. That is still very much the position. So, any other candidate vaccine will need to go through the same rigorous process, will need to have the same determination made by the MHRA. We have the third vaccine, which we expect to be available later in the spring, the Moderna vaccine. It's been approved, and that's when we expect to have supplies arriving within the UK. That's already a matter of public record. Any further approval will be subject to a public announcement by the MHRA in the usual way.

When it then comes to their use and the JCVI advice on the inter-dose interval between the first and second dose, this has already been published. It's not a matter of me publishing it, it has already been published and JCVI members have done a regular round of interviews for the last few weeks, explaining their advice, how they've come to that advice, the reason why the advice they've given covers the first nine priority groups, where 99 per cent of hospitalisation and deaths occur from COVID-19, but also, in particular, that advice on the inter-dose interval, which is classic public health advice on making sure that we provide as much protection as possible to the largest group in our population as quickly as possible, rather than providing a higher level of protection to a much smaller group of the population within the same time frame. It's part of the reason why Public Health Wales and their colleague agencies in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland support the JCVI advice on extending the inter-dose interval to 12 weeks. It's also why every single chief medical officer in the United Kingdom supports that advice. And it would be a very odd thing indeed if I decided as the Minister to overturn the advice of the chief medical officer, to overturn the advice of Public Health Wales and to overturn the advice of the independent expert JCVI on how to deliver a vaccine. It is not a position that I'm going to undertake. I would make the chief medical officer's position absolutely untenable if I did so. But, more than that, I would be ignoring the very direct advice that says that this approach will actually save lives and an alternative approach will cost lives. And I am absolutely not going to do that.