Stockton Covid vaccines nearing expiry as young people spurn jabs

Vaccine take-up in Stockton is high, but younger people are coming forward in smaller numbers

Some supplies of coronavirus vaccinations on Teesside are nearing their expiry date as young people cannot be persuaded "to come through the door", a health chief has warned.

Although overall uptake in Stockton is higher than the North East average, a surplus of jabs is building.

Fiona Adamson, of the Hartlepool and Stockton Health GP Federation, said a number of approaches had been tried to encourage young people to come forward.

However, none had proved successful.

"The issue has come full circle and we cannot shift the vaccines that are going to expire," Mrs Adamson told a meeting of Stockton Council's health and wellbeing board.

"That's not for want of trying.

"We just cannot get the young people to come through the door no matter what we try - and we're trying all sorts of things."

'Slightly suspicious'

A five-week package of additional support is now available to Stockton, along with the rest of the North East, as part of a government effort to cut the Covid-19 transmission rate.

It is hoped it will boost vaccine uptake in the region with more walk-in centres and a focus on younger men, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Cautiously welcoming a fall in the local infection rate over the past week, Sarah Bowman-Abouna, Stockton's director of public health, told the meeting the full impact of the easing of restrictions on 19 July had not yet been seen.

She added experts had expected the fall in rates to be more gradual which had made teams "slightly suspicious" that people were now testing less often than previously.