Renfrewshire care home residents and frontline care workers could receive the Covid-19 vaccine within weeks.
Health secretary Jeane Freeman said NHS staff, carers and those aged over 80 would be the first to be vaccinated as she outlined ambitious plans for the roll out of the jab nationwide.
Ms Freeman said the vaccine - thought to be 90 per cent effective - would be delivered in phases with the first one million doses to be administered by January.
Unpaid carers, personal assistants and those who will be delivering the vaccination programme will also be included in the initial cohort, with the most vulnerable groups expected to protected from the virus by February.
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Thanking the scores of people who took part in the clinical trial for the vaccine, Ms Freeman told parliament yesterday the vaccine is safe.
She said: “Over the coming weeks and months we will be sending information out to people across Scotland explaining what the vaccine is, how we are prioritising who gets the vaccine, what to expect when you are vaccinated, and so on.
“We are hopeful that in the coming months and leading into 2021, we will have more than one vaccine available to us so that we can, with minimum delay, vaccinate as many people as possible.
“We are ready for December, but the first vaccine has to be approved and supplies have to arrive.
“We hope the delivery programme will take from December to Spring next year to complete.”
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In total 4.4m over 18s will be eligible for the jab.
Ms Freeman said its roll out would be “one of the biggest civilian logistical challenges in our lifetime” with the military being deployed to help with the distribution.
