GLOBAL health expert Devi Sridhar says Europe should work together to ensure Covid-19 is eliminated.

Speaking to German newspaper Der Spiegel, the adviser to the Scottish Government was asked what European countries could learn from Scotland's approach. 

In reference to Germany's own efforts, she answered that while it has done "very well so far", her impression was that like England, the country was now trying to keep the number of cases low as opposed to getting them down to zero.

"Why don't you go one step further and try to eliminate the virus from Germany?" she asked.

Upon suggestions such a target would be unrealisting due to the risk of the virus coming back into the country from elsewhere, she replied: "You must not see this as a purely German approach, but as a pan-European project.

READ MORE: Covid-19: Scotland records 12th day with no virus deaths

"The heads of state and government from the Schengen area would have to get together and decide 'let's get rid of this virus together!'.

"As soon as the cases have dropped to zero, people could again move freely and safely within Europe's borders - provided that we then test and temporarily quarantine all those people who enter from other regions of the world."

Sridhar also ruled out Scotland's coronavirus strategy being "doomed to failure" due to England taking a different route, but said that the UK Government's strategy in keeping case numbers only low enough to avoid the health system collapsing was "a problem".

She denied that this would have a detrimental impact on Scotland's efforts to combat the virus.

She said: "We can carry out massive testing and consistently isolate infected people and their contacts so that infections are limited to imported cases.

"And we are trying to convince the rest of the UK to adopt Scotland's strategy. Northern Ireland is already doing quite well and I think that England and Wales could use the summer months, when people spend a lot of time outdoors, to reduce the number of cases effectively."

READ MORE: Nicola Steedman calls on Scots to join Covid-19 vaccine trial

She also set out exactly what the Scottish Government's "zero Covid" strategy consists of, stating: "We want to stop the transmission of the virus entirely. And the strategy to do that is not very difficult: you leave the lockdown measures in place until the number of cases is extremely low, in the single digits, then you carefully release the lockdown, step by step, while testing a lot, tracking down and isolating contacts, and making face masks compulsory in shops and on public transport."

She said such action is " the best way to get the domestic economy going again and to stabilize the health services".

As of Tuesday, Scotland has gone 12 days in a row without any reported Covid-19 deaths.

The First Minister gave the latest figures at the Scottish Government's coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh.

But Nicola Sturgeon warned that with Covid-19 cases rising across Europe, people should be aware when booking holidays abroad that rules can change very quickly.

She said the “safest” way to avoid that would be to holiday in Scotland.