The head of the UK’s medicines regulator has said there “should be no doubt” about the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine which will be rolled out this week in the largest scale immunisation programme in the UK’s history.
Dr June Raine, chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which approved the Pfizer/BioNTech jab, said there should be “real confidence” in the rigour of their approval.
Vaccinations will be administered at dozens of hospital hubs from Tuesday – with people aged 80 and over, care home workers and NHS workers who are at higher risk the first to receive the coronavirus jab.
The distribution of the vaccine across the UK is being undertaken by Public Health England and the NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland through systems specially adapted from those used for the national immunisation programmes.
NHS England said staff were working through the weekend to prepare for the launch.
Asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show about how important the public health message is to make sure that people actually take the vaccine, Dr Raine said: “It’s vitally important.
“And I would really like to emphasise that the highest standards of scrutiny, of safety and of effectiveness and quality have been met, international standards.
“And so there should be real confidence in the rigour of our approval.
“More than that, our Commission on Human Medicines has scrutinised every piece of data too, so there should be no doubt whatever that this is a very safe and highly effective vaccine.
“It will help us turn the corner. There’s really not one of us who hasn’t been affected by this pandemic, and our organisation, like every other, has been completely focused on doing our job to be able to help defeat this terrible disease.”
Dr Raine was asked how she had coped with becoming a “global figure” and about reports that the Queen, 94, will have the Pfizer injection within weeks.
She told the BBC’s Andrew Marr: “I’m proud, I’m honoured. I think that news that you’ve just given us is humbling, and it’s everything that we’re here to do at the MHRA.
“We’re a public health organisation, we work as full partners, if I can say, in the public health family, and our goal is totally to protect every member of the population, Her Majesty of course, as well.”