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Margaret Keenan, 90, became the first person in the Western world to be vaccinated with her vaccine. Pfizer / BioNTech against coronavirus, at a time when Britain today launches the largest vaccination program in its history.
Like she said it felt a lot “Privileged” who received his first dose at Coventry University Hospital a week before his 91st birthday.
“I feel privileged to be the first person to be vaccinated against Covid 19, it is the best anticipated birthday gift I could wish for, because it means that I can finally spend time with family and friends in the new year after my stay.” part of the time alone, “said Keenan from Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.
“I cannot thank the doctor and the nursing staff enough, who took great care of me and my advice to everyone who is offered the vaccine is to do so; if I can have it, you can too,” he added. with the BBC.
Great Britain, which has been affected Stronger in Europe from the pandemic with at least 61,000 deaths, it is the first country in the world to approved the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. THE Russia started taking his own vaccine over the weekend, Sputnik V.
Croydon University Hospital, South London, is one of the 50 hospital “centers” established in England that began to receive the first 800,000 starting doses of the Belgian Pierce plant vaccine. According to the Ministry of Health, 1,000 vaccination centers will also be established.
Upon arrival, the vaccines were removed from their dry ice boxes by a protection technician in protective gear and placed in a refrigerator where they must be kept at a temperature of -70 degrees.
“Knowing that he is here, that we are among the first in the country to get the vaccine, and therefore the first in the world, is just amazing,” admits Louise Coughlan, chief pharmacist at the hospital.
“It is not a sprint”
The occupants and their staff nursing homes will be the first to be vaccinated, a task complicated by the logistical challenges associated with the need to keep vaccines at a very low temperature. Health professionals and those over 80 will follow, followed by decreasing age.
The authorities hope to vaccinate from now until spring the nine categories they have defined, and include those over 50, health, and vulnerable groups. They represent 99% of the patients who died.
Britain ordered 40 million installments of this vaccine, allowing it to protect 20 million people, being necessary two doses with a difference of three weeks.
The first doses will be given on Tuesday also in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But the majority of the British population will have to wait until 2021.
The distribution of the vaccine will be “marathon and not a sprint, “warned the medical director of the National Health System (NHS), Steven Powys.