A PHARMACEUTICAL executive who helped develop the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine has said the fair share of Covid vaccines across the world is a ‘conundrum’.

Professor Sir Menelas Pangalos, was speaking after he collected a knighthood for his services to UK science from the Duke of Cambridge at a ceremony in Windsor Castle.

In September the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommended that boosters be rolled out to eligible groups including adults 50 years and above, and on Monday it extended this advice to adults over 40.

Sir Menelas, said: “It is good that it is being rolled out to the over-40s.

“Each country has its own vaccines that it has to deploy. I think we still need some data on when we need to boost people, in all honesty.

“There is a debate as to whether you should be boosting a third time or giving first or second doses to people in countries who do not have vaccines.

“That is a little bit of a conundrum that countries face but I understand why individual countries and politicians are thinking about their own populations before others and, in that regard, I think that boosting is the best protection, particularly for the more vulnerable older cohort of your population.

“There is no doubt that boosting gives you an added level of protection, both against infection and severe disease.”

He added: “I do worry that vaccines reach everyone in the world, not just the wealthy countries.”

He explained that almost two-thirds of AstraZeneca’s doses have gone to lower-middle income countries and said: “We are very proud of and we have done it not for profit as well.”

Covid booster jabs give more than 90 per cent protection against symptomatic infection in adults aged over 50, according to a study by the UK Health Security Agency.

Sir Menelas’s knighthood was announced in 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic, for the work he was already doing in areas such as strokes, heart attacks and asthma plus the role he has played in helping AstraZeneca become a leader science in the UK’s science sector.

Last month his wife Kelly, 46, and daughters Sofia, 13, and Anna, 12, caught Covid-19 and had to isolate at their South Cambridgeshire home.

Sir Menelas said: “It was a real reminder to me of how hard it is for people to keep a household and manage a career at the same time or who have to care for people.”