DORSET hospitals will become some of the first in the world to provide a third ‘booster’ Covid vaccine, the health secretary has announced.

Volunteers from Bournemouth will be able to receive a third 'booster' Covid jab through a new clinical trial in Dorset, Southampton and Portsmouth.

The Cov-Boost study, backed by £19.3 million of government funding through the Vaccines Taskforce, will be run at University Hospital Southampton, University Hospitals Dorset and the Portsmouth Research Hub (Portsmouth Hospitals), and is being led by University Hospital Southampton.

It will be the first in the world to provide vital data on the impact of a third dose on patients’ immune responses.

The initial findings, expected in September, will help inform decisions by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on any potential booster programme from autumn this year.

The trial will look at seven different Covid-19 vaccines as potential boosters, given at least 10 to 12 weeks after a second dose as part of the ongoing vaccination programme.

One booster will be provided to each volunteer and could be a different brand to the one they were originally vaccinated with.

Vaccines being trialled include Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax, Valneva, Janssen and Curevac, as well as a control group.

The study will be recruiting participants through the NHS Covid-19 Vaccine Research Registry, with vaccinations set to start from the beginning of June.

Participants will be aged 30 years or older and will include those immunised early on in the vaccination programme - for example, adults aged 75 and over or health and care workers.

The study will take place at 16 sites across the UK, and will include a total of 2,886 patients.

Professor Saul Faust, chief investigator and director of NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility, said: “This trial will give the JCVI the important data to inform their recommendations of how to protect the population against any future wave.

“It is fantastic that so many people across the country have taken part in vaccine trials up to now so that we can be in a position to study the effects of boosters, and we hope that as many people as possible over the age of 30 who received their first dose early in the NHS programme will be able to take part.”

Health secretary Matt Hancock said: “We will do everything we can to future-proof this country from pandemics and other threats to our health security, and the data from this world-first clinical trial will help shape the plans for our booster programme later this year.

“I urge everyone who has had both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, and is eligible, to sign up for this study and play a part in protecting the most vulnerable people in this country and around the world for months and years to come.”