UK ‘unsafe’ from future pandemic threats, says Oxford Vaccine Group director

The UK is “really unsafe” from future pandemic threats, a leading academic has told MPs.

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director at the Oxford Vaccine Group, said he was concerned that not enough work was being done to research different viruses and bacteria which pose a threat.

Sir Andrew, whose team created the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab during the pandemic, said there had already been “decades” of work into coronavirus vaccines before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

But “we are nowhere near the beginning of that starting gun” for other microbes, he told the Science and Technology Committee.