New JCVI chair appointed
Professor Wei Shen Lim KBE will become the new chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) from October 2025.
- Professor Sir Andrew Pollard will step down as JCVI chair on 30 September 2025 after 12 years of leadership
- During his tenure, Sir Andrew has been instrumental in advising governments on vaccination matters and chaired numerous committees
- Professor Wei Shen Lim KBE, who is currently deputy chair of the JCVI and chair of the COVID-19 sub-committee, will become the new JCVI chair from 1 October 2025
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard will step down as chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on 30 September 2025, after sitting on the committee for over a decade.
The JCVI is an independent departmental expert committee which has worked for over 6 decades to ensure that immunisation programmes in the UK are both world-leading and a cost-effective use of public money - optimising the protection of children and adults from serious infections.
Sir Andrew was appointed chair of the JCVI in 2013, having previously served as a member of the JCVI’s meningococcal sub-committee. During his tenure, he has been instrumental in advising governments on vaccination matters, serving not only as chair of the main JCVI committee, but also as chair of the human papillomavirus (HPV), influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) sub-committees. Sir Andrew remains a valued expert on vaccination and immunisation as director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, Ashall Professor of infection and immunity at the University of Oxford, and a paediatric infectious disease consultant at Oxford’s Children’s Hospital.
Following an open and competitive recruitment process, Professor Wei Shen Lim KBE will be appointed as the new chair of the JCVI from 1 October 2025. Professor Lim KBE is a consultant in respiratory medicine at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and an honorary professor of respiratory medicine for the University of Nottingham. He currently serves as the deputy chair of the JCVI and chair of the COVID-19 sub-committee.
Dr Thomas Waite, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England said:
I am deeply grateful for Sir Andrew’s leadership of the JCVI over the last 12 years. Over this time the JCVI has given advice to support the introduction of vaccination programmes to protect the public against a range of infections including meningococcal disease and RSV. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Sir Andrew for his dedication and expertise.
I am delighted to welcome Professor Lim KBE as the new chair of the committee. Professor Lim served as chair during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensured government received timely advice on the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccination programme to protect the health of the UK public. I very much look forward to continuing to work with him as the new chair.