Supplies of vaccines are "tight" but the UK believes it will receive enough doses to meet its targets, the vaccine minister has said.
Nadhim Zahawi told BBC Breakfast manufacturers were "confident" they would deliver for the UK amid warnings of production delays.
It comes as the EU said it might tighten vaccine export controls.
Countries should avoid "vaccine nationalism" and ensure a fair global supply, Mr Zahawi said.
The minister said the vaccination programme was still on track to deliver a first dose to 15 million of the most vulnerable by mid-February and to offer all adults their first dose by autumn.
He said the UK had supplies of the Oxford vaccine manufactured domestically by AstraZeneca as well as the Pfizer one, which is made in Belgium.
The government is also planning to publish figures on the take-up of the vaccine by ethnicity from Thursday, following concerns that some black, Asian and ethnic minority communities were more hesitant to get the jab.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to lead a Downing Street coronavirus briefing at 17:00 GMT alongside Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, and Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer.
"I'm confident we will meet our mid-February target and continue beyond that," Mr Zahawi told the BBC.
"Supplies are tight, they continue to be, these are new manufacturing processes," he added. "It's lumpy and bumpy, it gets better and stabilises and improves going forward."
But he declined to say that he had received guarantees about the number of doses the UK would receive from Pfizer or other manufacturers and refused to confirm how many doses had already arrived.
The prime minister's spokesman said AstraZeneca had committed to delivering two million doses a week to the UK, and the government was not expecting any changes to that supply.
Downing Street also rejected German media reports claiming a very low efficacy rate for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine among older people, saying they had been denied by Oxford University, AstraZeneca and the German health ministry.
Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the cabinet the trials showed similar immune responses in younger and older adults.
Doubts over UK's medium-term vaccine roll-out
The latest tension over supply of the Covid vaccine is another illustration of just how fragile this issue is.
There are huge global demands for Covid vaccine, limited raw materials and constraints on manufacturing.
The UK already has enough vaccine to jab all the highest-risk groups by mid-February, although not all of it has been packaged up or been through the final safety checks.
This explains why ministers are confident about the immediate target for the over-70s, health and care workers and the extremely clinically vulnerable.
But what is in doubt is how quickly the UK can vaccinate in the medium term.
With the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in the UK those supply routes are more guaranteed.
But the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is made in Belgium. The UK, like the rest of Europe, is affected by the problems with manufacturing that are being experienced with that vaccine.
With Europe experiencing major problems rolling out its vaccination programme - per head of population five times fewer vaccines have been delivered - this is a story that is going to rumble on for months.
The UK has placed orders for 367 million doses of vaccines from seven manufacturers, Mr Zahawi said. "As vaccines come along we will get more volume, millions more in the weeks and months to come," he added.
The tension over vaccine supplies increased after UK-based AstraZeneca warned the EU it would have to reduce planned deliveries because of production problems. Pfizer-BioNTech has also said supplies will be temporarily lower as it works to increase capacity at its Belgian factory.
It has prompted the EU to accuse AstraZeneca of failing to meet its commitments and to warn that it might require all companies producing Covid vaccines to provide "early notification" whenever they planned to export supplies out of the EU.
"The thing to do now is not to go down the dead end of vaccine nationalism. It's to work together to protect our people," Mr Zahawi said.
"No one is safe until the whole world is safe."
Meanwhile, the UK has offered to carry out genomic sequencing for other countries around the world to help identify further new variants.
Public Health England said it would give "crucial early warning" of any mutations that might cause the virus to spread faster, make people more ill or possibly reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.
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With the UK aiming to offer Covid vaccination to every adult by autumn, Mr Zahawi said confidence in the vaccines was high, with 85% of people saying they would accept the jab.
But he said those who were hesitant "skew heavily" towards black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.
The government is providing £23m of funding to 60 local councils and voluntary groups to boost vaccine take-up among groups such as older people, disabled people, and people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
They will use approaches such as helplines, school programmes, workplace engagement and phone calls to at-risk groups, as well as developing a network of trusted local champions who are expected to build trust, identify barriers to accurate information, and provide tailored support to communities.
It comes as celebrities such as comedians Romesh Ranganathan and Meera Syal and cricketer Moeen Ali appeared in a video urging people in their communities to get vaccinated.
'Genuine and deep concern'
Mr Zahawi told ITV's Good Morning Britain his uncle had died from Covid-19 last week. He had been eligible for vaccination but caught the virus before he could receive it, the minister said.
This "grim and horrible" experience made him determined to ensure that the most vulnerable were protected as quickly as possible, Mr Zahawi said.
Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, told MPs vaccine take-up had been "fantastic", with 80% of over-80s having received a dose so far, compared with the 75% coverage which had been anticipated.
But he said there was concern about vaccine hesitancy in some groups, where there were access problems as well as "systematic attempts to misinform and lie about the vaccine programme targeted particularly at minority populations, and - in some cases - long-standing mistrust of public services".
He said disruption to vaccine deliveries from EU export restrictions was not thought to be likely, adding: "We have a shared interest in every country doing well on vaccination, given that the virus moves across borders with extreme ease."
But Sir Simon said a lesson for the UK from the pandemic was the importance of "strong UK manufacturing capability" for products such as vaccines for "future resilience", as well as international co-operation.
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2021-01-26 13:29:00Z
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