FIFERS in the first priority groups to receive the Covid-19 vaccination are all due to have had their first dose by next Friday.

Work to deliver the jabs to frontline care workers and the over 80s began in December and so far, more than 25,000 people have been vaccinated.

Providing an update to Fife Health Board, NHS Fife's Director of Pharmacy and Medicines, Scott Garden, said the programme was "gathering pace".

He told members: "We have been in and delivered the first doses to all those eligible. Health and social care workers and we are in the process of vaccinating the over 80s within GP practices based on when the supply of the vaccine is available.

"The supply of the vaccine has been phased and that is to do with the approval process. That means in the initial stages, it is flowing in a bit more slowly than it would do. As the programme gathers pace, the volume of the vaccine available will be greater.

"We are in the midst of planning for other cohorts. The letters for cohorts three and four – the 75-80 and 70 to 75 age groups – which is about 32,000 people in Fife.

"The letters have started to go to these citizens as of Monday and that is part of the national scheduling solution that the board has signed up to and all boards will sign up to eventually.

"The breakdown beyond that is 65-70s are to be vaccinated by early March then cohorts 6-9, that is high risk, clinically extremely vulnerable patients, a lot of those who will have been shielded patients or those over 50 and they will receive their first vaccination by early May.

"Obviously demands are high but with the work done and recruitment done, we are in a position to deliver that."

With 12 community venues across Fife nearing readiness to be used, Mr Garden played down concerns over the availability of the vaccines.

"We certainly have assurances on the volume of vaccines being available for Scotland," he added. "We are getting good intelligence from the national procurement who are linking with Public Health Scotland.

"With that information, that allows us to plan our appointments and the use of our venues. Based on that information, we have looked to step up the opening times of our venues and days of the week of our venues to really ramp up the numbers from February 15.

"We have got the workforce and the venues to be able to do that."