Nicola Sturgeon has called on Westminster to foot the bill for vaccinating everyone in Scotland against Swine flu.

The UK-wide policy is to offer the vaccine to everyone. The estimated cost of an immunisation programme runs to around £100 million - and the Scottish Health Secretary has said that the cost should be met from the UK's contingency fund.

“The UK holds contingency funding for contingencies. If a flu pandemic is not a contingency, most people would struggle to think what is,” she said.

Discussions between the Scottish government and the UK Government are continuing over how the vaccination programme should be funded.

Ms Sturgeon said: “The response thus far has not been entirely positive, but we will continue to seek constructive discussions and our colleagues in Wales and Northern Ireland are keen to do so as well.”

The Health Secretary made it clear that if the UK Government refuses to fund the vaccinations that the Scottish government would find the money.

“We will have to find the money from within our own budget because our primary responsibility is to protect the public from the threat of flu,” she said.

Seventeen new cases of swine flu were confirmed at the weekend, taking the total number in Scotland to 566. A further 724 possible cases are under investigation.

Ms Sturgeon denied that Scotland was losing its grip in the fight against the flu bug.

She claimed that a cluster of cases in Dunoon was now “more or less over” while the two other clusters, in south Glasgow and Paisley, were being closely monitored.

“Outside these three areas, the number of cases in Scotland are very low,” she said.

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