SCOTLAND'S National Clinical Director has suggested some Scots will "probably" need a fourth dose of a Covid vaccine.
Jason Leitch suggested some Scots may be asked to get another booster dose of the coronavirus jag over the next few years as immunity naturally wanes over time.
His comments came after Professor Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said it is likely certain people in the UK will need a fourth jab.
He said discussions were still under review but that the JCVI would provide recommendations on fourth doses of the vaccine at “some point in the new year”.
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Speaking on Good Morning Scotland on Christmas Eve, Leitch said: "It would seem that we will probably need some kind of timed booster or next dose over the next few years.
"We don't know that for sure. It may be that we just offer that to the vulnerable or those who are maybe a bit older."
Professor Leitch mentioned Israel which announced that over 50s and those with pre-existing conditions would get a fourth dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
"Although they haven't started that process yet because the third one isn't waning," Leitch said.
He continued: "Remember immunity is like a dimmer switch, not like a light switch.
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"So if you can turn the dimmer switch up and keep it up, then that's what you want to do because this disease is at its worst when it gets people without immunity, whether that's natural immunity, whether they've got a disease that affects that immunity or they haven't been for a vaccine.
"So that's what we need to try and do and the research will work that out for us.
"So we will monitor people who have had third doses now. We will take blood from them, we'll work out where their immunity is.
"And when that begins to wane over time, the Joint Committee on Vaccination will advise us to go again, we just don't know when that will be."
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