The UK shouldn’t be ready for one more pandemic and should not be capable of make sufficient vaccines if one arrives, an influential group of politicians is warning.
Baroness Brown, chair of the Home of Lords Science and Know-how Committee, mentioned specialists have “troubling concerns about [the UK’s] capacity to manufacture vaccines for future biological threats” in a letter to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
The UK is “potentially well-placed to develop world-leading vaccine research” – however that benefit hasn’t been capitalised on, the group mentioned.
Some vaccine work has been “mothballed” and specialists had been involved an settlement with Moderna could solely cowl mRNA options.
By comparability, the EU has launched schemes to offer quite a lot of vaccine choices, and the US and Japan are researching oral and intranasal vaccines, which may very well be simpler to distribute.
These vaccines could induce stronger immunity in mildly contaminated folks, which could cease a virus transmission.
The federal government ought to hold the UK’s vaccine growth sector energetic and set up a “peacetime vaccines taskforce”, in response to the committee, in addition to conducting common pandemic preparedness workout routines.
It also needs to help a spread of vaccine applied sciences so it would not change into over-reliant on one know-how, and analysis amenities ought to be funded on a longer-term foundation, the letter mentioned.
Baroness Brown mentioned a resilient home vaccine sector was a “critically important sovereign capability for security” in opposition to the subsequent pandemic.
“Recent developments raise concerns, and the sector needs renewed focus and Government support to ensure that lessons are learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and capacity retained,” she mentioned.
