Expert claims Scotland may not need Covid-19 vaccine

A Covid-19 vaccine may not be needed for the general population in Scotland if case numbers continue to fall, it has been claimed.

Professor Hugh Pennington has suggested Scotland may not need a vaccine for coronavirus.

Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, said that the coronavirus vaccine may only be required for those travelling to Scotland who may bring the virus with them.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland he said that he believed Scotland could be coronavirus-free by Hogmanay, though he doubted a vaccine would be ready by then.

"We've got case numbers down, the actual number of positive test numbers are down to very low levels indeed and we know from other countries who’ve dealt with this virus in positive way - that is, getting rid of it - that it took a long time as it hung around and that's what we might see in Scotland,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we can get rid of it. Hogmanay is quite a long ay off still so we have a long time to really get to grips with the virus in the sense of finding out exactly where it is and where it has come from... we've got the contact tracing system in place and that's its function.”

He added: “On the vaccine, clearly things are going according to plan in terms of the preliminary tests that have been done but it's too early to say whether there will be a vaccine ready to roll out by the end of the year, I have doubts about that.

"But with case numbers way down, we may not need a vaccine at all except for an insurance policy. If we get the virus down to virtually zero in terms of the virus moving around, such as they have in New Zealand, then there are issues with imported cases when a vaccine might prove useful, as it did with small pox.”

The UK government announced today that it had secured early access to 90 million vaccine doses from the BioNTech/Pfizer alliance and Valneva with more in the pipeline as part of its strategy to build a portfolio of vaccines to protect the population from Covid-19. It also said that treatments containing Covid-19-neutralising antibodies have been secured from AstraZeneca to protect those who cannot receive vaccines.

People are now being encouraged to sign up to a new NHS website to make it quicker and easier for potential volunteers to join vaccine studies, with the aim of getting 500,000 to sign up by October.

However Professor Pennington added: “Rolling out a vaccine is not a simple task. Not all the people who will benefit, for instance as happens with flu vaccine, take it up because its voluntary. And we know with flu vaccine it gives protection, but not all the people all the time, and we might have to have repeat doses and we still don't know how long immunity lasts. We would also have to work out what our policy will be when we have vaccines and we can pick and choose who we give it to, and we will also want to know how good it will be in terms of long term protection.”

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