I AM writing with some concern about how messaging for these various vaccines is being given out in briefings and the press.

Vaccines are only one element of any disease prevention or harm reduction programme in public health. Increasingly it is being seen at best as a panacea to the pandemic and at worst as the saviour of us all. Neither of these are accurate.

A vaccine will only at best help people to be less ill and reduce mortality rates, but there will always need to be other things in place to prevent people becoming infected and infectious in the first place.

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This was particularly clear in the highly successful vaccination programme in Scotland in the 1950s for smallpox, where other provisions were introduced as well as a comprehensive education programme, and more recently in the AIDS programme, where there was no vaccine but targeted reductions of risky behaviour had a significant effect in reducing mortality rates in at-risk groups.

In addition, the efficacy of the vaccines is not currently available so we don’t know for sure if we have to be vaccinated annually like with the flu jab or if it will be more often.

I am concerned that people will receive a vaccination and then think they are safe and resume risky behaviours like not distancing or wearing a mask.

READ MORE: All Scots to be offered their first Covid jab by September or sooner

I would like to say clearly I am not an anti-vaxxer; I have worked in other public health initiatives with high-risk-taking groups and am speaking from my own experiences around harm reduction and the use of vaccines within those programmes.

We need to be making sure that people get the complete message and not this rather dangerous message of “cure-all” or once you are vaccinated “you are safe”.

If we don’t make this clear, we may look at higher death rates and an erroneous view that the vaccines don’t work.

Carol Wood
via email