A top adviser to Nicola Sturgeon said he’s not “overly worried” about trials suggesting a vaccine was not effective at preventing mild illness by the South African covid strain.
Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, responded to early results about the impact of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab
The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, led to South Africa suspending its rollout of the British-designed vaccine.
Leitch said people were right to be cautious but everything pointed to the vaccine creating greater immunity in older people.
The initial trials of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab were “relatively small”, he said, though he was not “overly worried” by the new South African study.
Leitch said: “Public confidence in vaccines is absolutely crucial and our data would suggest that’s not a big problem, in fact quite the opposite.
“If you told me three months ago that 94% of over-80s would take this injection, I genuinely would not have believed you.”
Those in younger age groups tended to be less keen to take up other vaccines, he said.
Prof Leitch added: “Everybody in the scientific community says 80% is kind of where you should aim for.
“So if you’re going to set yourself a target, set yourself a target of 80%.
“But we want more than that, we got 99.4% of care home residents, there’s a tiny number who are not eligible or they turned it down for whatever reason.
“So that’s what I want in the 30-year-olds when we get to the 30-year-olds.”
Meanwhile, he repeated claims Scotland is not ready to have restrictions lifted.
“We’re not out of the woods,” he said. “We're doing well, and the population are really, really doing it, but we've got to be really, really cautious about any opening just now.”
