Moderna Covid-19 vaccine to be rolled out in UK within two weeks

Addressing the coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh, she said: “The fact that we now have three vaccines in use is clearly very welcome and it does give us greater security of supply which is welcome.”

The UK Government has ordered 17 million doses of the jag, of which more than one million doses will be sent to Scotland in proportion with population.

However, due to logistics – including cold storage requirements – the Moderna vaccine will only be sent to mass vaccination centres in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

The jag will be used in the UK from the third week of April, Mr Zahawi told BBC Breakfast on Tuesday.

"It will be in deployment around the third week of April in the NHS and we will get more volume in May as well,” he said.

“And of course more volume of Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca and we have got other vaccines. We have got the Janssen – Johnson and Johnson – vaccine coming through as well.

“So I am confident that we will be able to meet our target of mid-April offering the vaccine to all over-50s and then end of July offering the vaccine to all adults.”

National Clinical Director Jason Leitch said the Moderna doses will not make a particularly large impact on supply in Scotland.

“It will be an additional arm of the vaccine programme but it will not be at the scale we've got yet atround AstraZeneca and Pfizer,” he told a media briefing last week.

"But it will be help, and it will come.”

The Moderna vaccine requires cold storage freezers and specialist equipment, meaning it is more suited to rollout at large vaccination centres with more resources.

Mr Zahawi added that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) looked “very closely” at reports of adverse reactions to the vaccines.

Asked about reports that regulators are considering proposals to restrict the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in younger people, he said: “The regulators absolutely look at, very closely, any adverse incidents through the yellow card system.”

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