Young people will be offered discounted takeaways and taxi rides to get their Covid jabs in a bid to boost vaccine uptake, the government has said.

Food delivery and taxi-hailing firms including Uber, Bolt, Deliveroo and Pizza Pilgrims will offer incentives to people to get vaccinated.

The Department of Health said details on more partnerships would be released “in due course”.

It said about 67% of 18 to 29-year-olds in England have had a first jab.

More than 72% of UK adults have had two doses so far, while 88.5% have had one.

Ride hailing firm Uber will send reminders to all users in August urging them to get vaccinated – and will offer discounted rides and meals on its Uber Eats platform for young people who have the vaccine.

Bolt, another taxi app firm, will offer “free ride credit” to vaccination centres, while food delivery firm Deliveroo will give vouchers to young people who get vaccinated.

The Department of Health said other incentives could include “vouchers or discount codes for people attending pop-up vaccine sites and booking through the NHS, social media competitions and promotional offers for restaurants”.

Trials of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University will resume after being paused due to a reported side effect in a patient in the UK.

On Tuesday, AstraZeneca said the studies were being paused while it investigated whether the adverse reaction was linked with the vaccine.

But on Saturday, the university said it had been deemed safe to continue.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock welcomed the news that the trials would resume.

“This pause shows we will always put safety first. We will back our scientists to deliver an effective vaccine as soon as safely possible,” he added.

The university said in a statement that it was “expected” that “some participants will become unwell” in large trials such as this one.

It added that the studies could now resume following the recommendations of an independent safety review committee and the UK regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

Parents are finding it difficult to access GP appointments to vaccinate their children, a phenomenon which has contributed to a fall in immunisation rates, the Whitehall spending watchdog has found.

The National Audit Office (NAO) warns of an inconsistent system for calling children for vaccines – especially among “under-served” groups, such as travellers, who have a lower vaccination uptake.

NHS England missed the 95 per cent uptake target for nearly all routine pre-school jabs in 2018-19, following a general downward trend since 2012-13.

Just 86.4 per cent of children had had the full dose of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab by the age of five in 2018-19, which is below the World Health Organisation’s 95 per cent target.

The timing and availability of GP appointments, as well as childcare pressures, are some of the possible reasons for falling pre-school vaccination rates, the NAO report says.

Experts have expressed alarm at the drop in take-up of all routine childhood vaccinations across England, with a marked decline in rates against 13 different diseases, which leaves many thousands of children under-protected.

The UK recently lost its measles-free status because of the fall in rates of MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) immunisation. But the latest figures from NHS Digital for England in the year to the end of March 2019 show a loss of confidence for vaccinations more generally.

At the ages of 12 months, 24 months and five years there has been a marked decline in vaccination rates against 13 different diseases, including whooping cough (pertussis), diphtheria and meningitis.

Lives at risk from surge in measles across Europe, experts warn

Measles protection is down again – part of a protracted fall in take-up of the MMR jab that has led to outbreaks across Europe, which have then spread into England. Measles had been officially eradicated in the UK, but the World Health Organization recently withdrew its measles-free status.

Coverage of 95% of the population is necessary to prevent outbreaks. Among children aged 24 months, vaccination in England has dropped from 91.2% in 2017-18 to 90.3% in 2018-19. The rate has gone down each year for the last five years.

Pinterest users searching for vaccine-related information will be directed to results from “public health organisations”.

Last year, the social platform stopped showing results for vaccine searches to tackle the spread of misinformation.

Social media companies are facing increasing scrutiny over how they moderate content on their sites.

In recent months, other firms including Facebook have taken some steps to address vaccine misinformation.

Under the new policy, Pinterest said searches for “measles,” “vaccine safety” and other related health terms will return results from public health bodies including the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Centres for Disease Control and the WHO-established Vaccine Safety Net.

“We’re taking this approach because we believe that showing vaccine misinformation alongside resources from public health experts isn’t responsible,” the firm said in a statement.

“As we continue to tackle health misinformation, we remove it and the accounts that spread it from our service,” Pinterest said.

The firm also said it won’t show ads, comments or recommendations on results pages for vaccine searches.