Top doctors have pledged to shun any potential booster Covid vaccine they will be offered amid backlash that spare doses are not being sent to poorer countries.
Third jabs are a key part of No10's plan to avoid another crisis this winter and prevent another lockdown. Up to 32million Britons over the age of 50, frontline NHS workers and care home residents will be offered another jab in the run-up to Christmas.
Evidence has shown that immunity can wane over time but experts are yet to decide whether there should be a wider rollout in the UK. Israel, however, has already said all over-12s can get a third dose.
But ever since the idea of dishing out top-up vaccines was first touted, some experts have insisted extra jabs would be better used by giving people in other countries a first dose.
Now some leading British medics have declared that they will opt out of getting any booster when they are offered.
Dr Jake Dunning, an infectious diseases researcher at the University of Oxford and the Royal Free Hospital, compared the rollout to giving an extra life jacket to people 'while ignoring those people who have no life jackets whatsoever'.
One Public Health England expert said they could not accept a booster jab 'in good conscience'.
It comes after the the US Food and Drug Administration approved boosters for only the over-65s and those who are at high risk of developing a severe case of the virus.
NHS staff were among the first to receive booster doses last week. Pictured: Catherine Cargill receiving a third Covid injection at Croydon University Hospital in south London on Thursday
Some 48.5million over-16s (89.4 per cent) in the UK have received at least one Covid vaccine, while 44.4million (81.7 per cent) are double jabbed. But in some poorer countries, such as Haiti, as little as 0.1 per cent have had a single dose
Dr Dunning told The Telegraph he would not accept a third dose if he was offered one because there was little evidence of any benefit for young healthy people.
He said: 'It's like giving an extra life jacket to people already wearing functioning (but not always perfect) life jackets, just to make sure, while ignoring those people who have no life jackets whatsoever.
'I just feel very uneasy accepting a booster myself and I hope to draw attention to the ongoing crisis of inadequate vaccinations in poorer countries.
