Covid: Contagion film shows lessons around vaccine supply - Hancock

The Hollywood film Contagion showed the importance of securing enough Covid vaccines for use once they had been approved, the health secretary said.

Matt Hancock said he had watched the film - which is about a deadly virus - and insisted the UK ordered enough jabs for its population.

He told LBC Radio the 2011 movie also shows there is a "huge row" about who should be given the vaccine first.

It led to the UK setting out early its "order of priority" for the jabs.

Contagion, which stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon, looks at what would happen in the event of a virus spreading around the world.

Mr Hancock said in the film it shows the "highest stress" around the vaccine programme is after it starts getting rolled out.

The health secretary said the film shows the pressures around a virus vaccination programme

He said the movie was not his "primary" source of advice but he knew when the vaccine was approved the demand for it would be "huge".

"In the film it shows the moment of highest stress around the vaccine programme is not in fact before it's rolled out - when actually it's the scientist and the manufacturers working together at pace - it's afterwards when there's a huge row about the order of priority," he told the radio station.

"I insisted we ordered enough for every adult to have two doses but also we asked for that clinical advice on the prioritisation very early and set it out in public, I think for the first time in August or September, so that there was no big row about the order of priority."

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Contagion was made in the hope that it might prevent a future worldwide pandemic like coronavirus, according to epidemiologist Dr Ian Lipkin.

He was the scientific adviser for the film and he said it took a "long time to try and get all the details as accurate as we possibly could make them".

The UK has secured 407 million doses of different coronavirus vaccines - more than enough for the entire population.

This includes 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine which was approved for use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the UK's regulatory body, on 30 December.

Vaccines are being given to the most vulnerable first. A list of nine high-priority groups which covers about 32 million people is being followed.

The health secretary said he knew the UK would need to be ready to vaccinate "every adult in the country", adding: "I wasn't going to settle for less in the same way that I wasn't going to settle for a contract that allowed for the Oxford vaccine to be delivered to others around the world before us."

"I was insisting we could keep the British public and all of the British public safe, as my primary responsibility as the UK health secretary is to the health of the nation," he added.

Earlier this week, the EU was involved in a much-criticised row with both the UK and pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca over vaccine shortages.

In particular it was condemned over its threat to put checks on the Northern Ireland border to prevent vaccines produced in the EU from reaching the UK.

AstraZeneca had said it could deliver only a fraction of the doses it promised for the first quarter of the year - blaming production issues at European plants.

The EU had said doses made elsewhere should make up the shortfall.