Covid: New Moderna vaccine due to arrive in Scotland next week

The Moderna vaccine will only be available at large vaccination centres

The new Moderna vaccine could arrive in Scotland as early as next week, the chief medical officer has said.

It will become the third Covid-19 vaccine to be used in Scotland, alongside the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs.

Dr Gregor Smith said the Moderna vaccine was similar to Pfizer and needed to be kept at low temperatures.

This means it will only be available at the large vaccination centres in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

The Moderna vaccine also needs to be given in two doses, several weeks apart.

National clinical director Prof Jason Leitch said the number of Moderna doses coming to Scotland would be low at first, but described the new vaccine as a help and an "additional arm" of the vaccination programme.

The UK has ordered 17 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, with Scotland receiving a proportion of that number.

The Moderna jab is the third of seven vaccines that the UK has ordered.

Moderna and Pfizer have both developed RNA vaccines - a new approach that is quick to design.

They work by injecting a tiny fragment of the virus's genetic code into the body, which starts producing part of the coronavirus and pushes the body to mount a defence.

The Scottish government says it wants to offer a vaccine to everyone in Scotland aged 16 or over by the end of July.

So far, 2,493,327 people in Scotland have been given their first dose of Covid vaccine and 399,062 have received their second dose, according to government figures.

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