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The UK needs a “peacetime vaccine taskforce” to prepare for the next pandemic, ministers have been warned amid concerns that government could forget the lessons Covid-19.
Commons Committee on Science and Technology also called on the government to appoint a boss vaccines officials who will help prepare the country for future threats.
In a letter sent this week, the Baroness Brown of Cambridge, chairman of the committee, gave evidence at the inquiry The committee raised “worrying concerns about our capacity to produce vaccines for future biological threats.”
The warning comes after the government announced it had bought more than 5 million doses of bird flu vaccines help fight a potential future pandemic. This followed an increase in the transmission of the virus between animals.
The committee said its interest in UK vaccine development was prompted by a “series of worrying developments”, including the sale of the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Center (VMIC) in Oxfordshire, and the subsequent closure of the facility.
It also cited 11 reports that planned cuts to state aid have put AstraZeneca’s vaccine manufacturing facility in Liverpool at risk.
Giving evidence in January, Dr Clive Dix, former chairman of the vaccine task force, said the Conservative government had “destroyed almost everything that was going on” in favor of relying on Moderna. He said there is now less resilience in the UK as many manufacturers have left the UK.
The committee’s letter added: “Our witnesses expressed concern that ‘other countries have learned lessons… from where we sit, the government and the public seem to have concluded that the UK can do it and we don’t need to improve our systems,’ comparing it unfavorable with the more proactive EU response discussed below.”
It added: “The UK needs to ensure it maintains robust vaccine production and ramps up capacity for the next pandemic, but is lagging behind other countries. Witnesses argued that the UK was fortunate to be able to produce a vaccine at high speed in 2020 and that it should not be assumed that this would be possible in the future without renewed and continued support, and that this relative success may have led to some complacency compared to countries that more urgently financed the production of vaccines.”
Earlier this year, the government announced a new partnership with pharmaceutical giant Moderna to test a new norovirus vaccine.