Sturgeon against reducing vaccine gap despite advice from The WHO
It would be “unthinkable” to reduce the gap between first and second vaccine doses without advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to do so, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
The First Minister faced pressure from opposition MSPS to speed up Scotland’s vaccine delivery, as weekly doses fell to their lowest in four months last week. Some 184,320 doses were given, the lowest figure since the second week in March.
Ms Sturgeon defended the rollout, and said supplies are “healthy” but second doses are constrained by needing to wait eight weeks after a first dose. Labour leader Anas
Sarwar called on the Scottish Government to reduce the gap between doses – a move the First Minister labelled “unthinkable”.
Mr Sarwar said: “The WHO advice is to administer the second dose of the vaccine after three to four weeks, the manufacturer's advice is to administer the vaccine after three to four weeks, and many countries across the world are administering the second dose of the vaccine after four weeks, and we know from the data that the significant protection you get to the Delta variant comes from the second dose of the vaccine.
“So will the government now move to a four week gap between vaccines, as recommended by the WHO, as recommended by manufacturers, and as has been led by other countries around the world?”
But Ms Sturgeon called Mr Sarwar’s comments “irresponsible”. It would be “unthinkable” to go against JCVI advice, Ms Sturgeon said.