RE: New Vaccine29 Mar 2021 13:31
'Mr Zahawi also told the paper last week that ministers were expecting up to eight vaccines to be available by the autumn, and the Government was already talking to those three manufacturers about creating new versions of their jab that would be more effective against variants.
It includes one that could protect against three different Covid variants in a single jab.
Mr Zahawi said: "The Novavax technology allows us to have a bi-variant or tri-variant vaccine in the way you do with flu.
"So inside the actual vaccine itself, it can have more than one variant."
He added that Novavax would be available for the autumn vaccination drive.
Asked when the booster jabs would begin, Mr Zahawi said: "The most likely date will be September.
"Jonathan Van-Tam [the deputy chief medical officer] thinks that if we are going to see a requirement for a booster jab to protect the most vulnerable, [it] would be around September.”
The UK already has 60 million doses of the Novavax vaccine ordered.'