Vaccine rollout in care homes 'was a lucky roll of the dice'

Covid vaccines were rolled out for elderly and vulnerable residents in care homes despite health officials having little knowledge of their effect on older people, a leading expert has revealed.

Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Post ahead of the five-year anniversary of the first lockdown on March 23, Professor Roy Soiza, an expert in elderly healthcare and vaccinations at Aberdeen University, warned the government must never again take the same gamble.

Soiza, a consultant geriatrician who has led research on the safety of the Covid vaccine in older people, said the UK was “very lucky” the risk paid off but it was possible the jab could have not worked at all or made frail and elderly people very ill.

The Scottish and UK governments received criticism over their handling of care homes during the pandemic, including the disastrous decision to move infectious individuals  into the facilities to free up  hospital beds.

The first dose of the vaccine was administered across care homes and the oldest age groups in Scotland shortly before Christmas 2020, with officials taking the decision to give doses to those at the greatest risk from Covid straight away.

A roll of the dice

Soiza believes that decision was effectively a roll of the dice and, while the outcome was  a positive one, he says health officials must change the way they test vaccines for any new outbreaks to avoid disaster.

He said: “One issue I think is really important that we learn from is that we test the vaccine in populations that represent the real world.

“What happened with Covid, and this is one of my main focuses for research, is that the vaccines were largely tested on a relatively young and relatively healthy population.

NHS Grampian’s Roy Soiza. Image: DC Thomson

“But if you remember at the very start of the programme, the group that was prioritised was people in care homes.

“We didn’t test any of these vaccines in people in care homes so that, I think, is a potential risk that needs to be addressed.”

No need to gamble

Soiza’s team has recently received a grant to develop guidance on how best to recruit care home residents into medical trials.

This is because older people tend to bare the brunt of most serious infections and care homes can act as super spreaders for any new virus.

“If we test vaccines in that population faster and more effectively, it means we don’t need to gamble or make assumptions like we did during Covid that the vaccines would work as well in a care home population,” Soiza said.

“We were very lucky in my opinion that they did but we didn’t know that when we were rolling the programme out.

“In practice, the elderly immune system deals with MRNA vaccines very well but we didn’t really know that. We only found that out after started giving out these very precious and, for a while, very limited vaccines to the care home population.

“That could have been a complete failure. They might not have worked or they might have made people ill. We just didn’t know.

“Even basic adverse side effects of a vaccine, a sore arm or feeling a bit ill for a day or two, for a young and fit person that’s maybe a nuisance and no more.

“But for somebody that is struggling at home, that might be the difference between remaining independent or not, falling or not, or ending up in hospital or not. The stakes are far higher.”

The Scottish Government said it follows the expert and independent advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on eligibility for vaccines.

It added: “The regulation and licensing of medicines is the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and a continuous assessment of safety is undertaken on all vaccines.”