PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Tuberculosis: Vaccination (13 December 2016)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons TB vaccinations are not available on the NHS to children in all London boroughs; and what the requirements are for boroughs to provide TB vaccinations by the NHS.

Asked by:
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour)

The implementation of the 2014 strategy to move to universal offer of Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccination for all babies up to the age of one year in London has been interrupted by a global shortage of the BCG vaccine since April 2015. Public Health England has successfully secured an alternative unlicensed supply of BCG vaccine for the United Kingdom from a different manufacturer. As stocks remain restricted, NHS England has produced a protocol for delivery to those in the following priority groups:

- All infants (aged 0 to 12 months) with a parent or grandparent who was born in a country where the annual incidence of tuberculosis (TB) is 40/100,000 or greater.

- All infants (aged 0 to 12 months) living in areas of the UK where the annual incidence of TB is 40/100,000 or greater.

Answered by:
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative)
16 December 2016