Covid-19 booster available in NI in mid-September

The booster will help top up immunity and cut people's risk of becoming severely ill

The autumn Covid-19 booster vaccination programme in Northern Ireland is due to start on Monday 19 September.

Care home residents and staff will be among the first to be offered the vaccine.

The booster will help top up immunity and cut people's risk of becoming severely ill.

Many of those receiving the latest booster will get a new vaccine from Moderna, tackling the original Covid virus and the recent Omicron variant.

The updated advice comes from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises governments in the UK.

The two-in-one booster will be offered to care home residents and staff, frontline healthcare workers, all adults aged 50 and over, those in a clinical risk group, carers and those aged five to 49 who are household contacts of people with immunosuppression.

The rollout of the booster will mainly be done by GPs, community pharmacies and health trusts.

The latest figures show that about one in 70 people in Northern Ireland are testing positive for coronavirus.

But free lateral flow tests are no longer available to most people, meaning accurate monitoring of the spread of the virus is becoming more difficult.

For some people this will be their sixth dose of a Covid vaccine.

This winter is expected to be a busy one for the health service because, due to Covid restrictions, there hasn't been a typical flu season since the pandemic started.

The concern is this year could be particularly problematic with simultaneous waves of flu and Covid.