London: The United Kingdom (UK) began Monday rolling out the Oxford University vaccine developed by AstraZeneca. The first person to get the Oxford University-AstraZeneca jab was an 82-year-old Oxford-born dialysis patient. Brian Pinker was among the first to be vaccinated by the Oxford University Hospital’s (OUH) chief nurse. Officials of the National Health Service (NHS) are carrying out the vaccination drive. The Oxford jab is the second vaccine approved for rollout after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
Pinker is a retired maintenance manager who has been having dialysis for kidney disease at the hospital for a number of years. He said he was pleased to be getting protection against the virus.
“It will certainly give me peace of mind as I continue to receive treatment. I am so pleased to be getting the COVID-19 vaccine today. Really proud that it is one that was invented in Oxford. The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant. I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year,” Pinker said.
Alongside Pinker, music teacher and father-of-three Trevor Cowlett, aged 88, and Professor Andrew Pollard, a paediatrician working at OUH who also pioneered the Oxford jab, are among the first to be vaccinated Monday.
“The Oxford vaccine is a triumph of British science. I want to thank everyone involved in its development and production,” said UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “We know there are challenges still ahead of us over the coming weeks and months. However, I’m confident this is the year we will defeat coronavirus and start building back better,” added Johnson.
Also read: AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine safe, Indian trials progressing smoothly: Serum Institute
Professor Pollard is the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and Chief Investigator of the Oxford Vaccine Trial. “It was an incredibly proud moment for me to have received the actual vaccine that the University of Oxford and the AstraZeneca teams have worked so hard to make available to the UK and the world,” stated Pollard.
The new Oxford vaccine is easier to transport and store than the Pfizer jab. The latter has to be kept at minus 70 degrees until shortly before it is used.
The first Oxford AstraZeneca vaccinations will be delivered at a small number of hospitals for the first few days for surveillance purposes. This is the standard practice adopted. Then the bulk of supplies will be sent to hundreds of general practitioner (GP) led services later in the week. The NHS is giving GPs an extra 10 pounds for every care home resident that they vaccinate by the end of the month. Thereafter, hundreds of new vaccination sites are due to come on stream this week, joining the 700 which are already in operation.
