Moderna vaccine to be delivered from next week to selected health boards
Scotland will begin receiving doses of a third Covid-19 vaccine from next week, the Chief Medical Officer has said.
Dr Gregor Smith told a Covid-19mediabriefingonthursday that although there is no date yet set for the first Moderna vaccine jags to be given, he expectsdosestobeginarriving “as early as next week”.
However, not all health boards will receive this vaccine type, due to difficulties in storage and distribution, and it will be sent only to mass vaccinationsitesinlothian,glasgow and Grampian.
It comes as 2,493,327 have received a first dose of Covid-19 vaccine in Scotland, and 399,062 have received a
second dose.
The UK has ordered 17 milliondosesofmodernavaccine, of which Scotland will receive aroundeightpercentbasedon population.
As not all the supply will arrive immediately, National Clinical Director Jason Leitch said the Moderna doses will not make a particularly large impact on supply in Scotland.
“It will be an additional arm ofthevaccineprogrammebut it will not be at the scale we've got yet atround Astrazeneca and Pfizer,” he said. "But it will be help, and it will come.”
The Moderna vaccine requires cold storage freezers and specialist equipment, meaning it is more suited to rollout at large vaccination centres with more resources.
“It’s very similar in terms of its basis to the Pfizer vaccine that we've been using already, and that necessitates some additional storage requirements, that we have catered for in those mass vaccination centres,” said Dr Smith.
"I expect the first doses of thosevaccinestoarriveinscotland as early as next week.”