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Public health body lifts cap on shingles vaccine orders

Public Health England has lifted a cap on the number of orders a GP can make for the shingles vaccine, after the supplier confirmed it could now manufacture more of the vaccine.

The lifting of restrictions came after PHE placed a cap on practices in October last year, which meant they could only order 20 vaccine doses each per week.

This was after stocks of Zostavax – which is produced by Sanofi Pasteur MSD – ran out as a result of practices placing multiple orders to get round the original cap of five doses at a time.

Sanofi Pasteur MSD had said that it could supply the vaccine direct to practices offering it to patients on private prescriptions.

However, a spokesperson for PHE told Pulse that it would continue ‘to monitor the orders being received and will keep this under review’.

The Government introduced the national shingles vaccination programme in September last year for people aged 70 years, along with a catch-up programme for people over 70 starting in those aged 79 years.

This was in line with JCVI advice that the Zostavax vaccine is cost-effective for reducing shingles and post-herpetic neuralgia in the 70–79 years age group.


          

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