MORE than 75 per cent of those eligible for a coronavirus vaccine in Trafford have now had at least their first dose.

Vaccine uptake has been good across the borough, health bosses have revealed, despite slight hesitancy surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccine initially.

Rebecca Demaine, of Trafford Clinical Commissioning Group, announced the figures while giving an update to Trafford Council at a public engagement board meeting.

She said: “We are seeing a lot of uptake in the younger population, which was something we were slightly concerned about in terms of hesitancy but we are seeing significant demand.

“We are seeing some slight hesitancy in terms of the AstraZeneca vaccine across all age groups, even those who have had their first dose AstraZeneca vaccine without any side effects.

“There is some hesitancy in terms of second doses so we’re outlining the risk of the AstraZeneca vaccine being much smaller than the virus.”

A couple of primary care networks across the borough have recently withdrawn from the vaccine delivery programme.

Ms Demaine explained this was due to the rising pressures on other care services since restrictions began to ease and the need to get through a backlog of patients.

To ensure this doesn’t affect the distribution of vaccines going forward, Ms Demaine said two pharmacies are now covering the west of Trafford in Urmston and Partington.

The vaccine distribution teams running at the LifeCentre in Sale finished its final clinic on Friday 18 June, Ms Demaine said.

To ensure this doesn’t affect the Sale vaccine distribution, a Timperley pharmacy operating its vaccine clinics at the Larkhill Centre is taking up the demand from this week.