Final preparations for the COVID-19 vaccination campaign are underway in the UK.



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About 800,000 doses of the vaccine are expected to be distributed during the immunization program, which will be the largest in the country’s history and will be closely monitored by countries around the world starting Tuesday. Health Secretary Matt Hancock called “V-Day” Tuesday the so-called World War II Victory Day.

“Despite the complexity of the process, hospitals will launch on Tuesday the first phase of the largest vaccination campaign in our country’s history,” said Stephen Powis, director of England’s National Health Service (NHS). “The first part of the vaccines will be delivered to hospitals on Monday.”

Last week, the UK became the first country to allow immediate use of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. Studies have shown that the vaccine is approximately 95 percent effective. Residents will begin vaccination from Tuesday in about 50 hospitals in England.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will also start vaccinating the population on the same day.

Governments and health agencies around the world will be monitoring the vaccination program in the UK, which will take over a month to learn from the successes and failures and adjust their plans accordingly.

The United States hopes to begin vaccination a little later this month. British regulators are also evaluating vaccine data from American biotech companies Moderna and AstraZeneca, as well as the University of Oxford.

Russia began vaccinating thousands of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine at ten centers in Moscow on Saturday in Moscow, which was approved in the summer after only a few dozen people tested the vaccine.

Meanwhile, in the UK, where COVID-19 has claimed more than 61,000 lives, an upcoming vaccination campaign is eagerly awaited.

“Next week will be historic when we start vaccinating against COVID-19,” Hancock said.

One of the first to be vaccinated will be people over 80 who visit hospitals and patients discharged after hospitalization. Hospitals will also begin inviting people over 80 to get vaccinated and will work with nursing homes to invite staff to vaccination clinics. If the population is not vaccinated, free vaccinations will be offered to those health workers who are considered to be at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. All vaccinated people will need a second dose after 21 days.

Buckingham House declined to comment on rumors that the 94-year-old Queen Elizabeth II and her 99-year-old wife, Prince Philip, may soon be vaccinated, and the information will be released to reassure anyone who is concerned about the safety of vaccines.

“Our aim is to fully protect all citizens, including His Majesty, of course,” June Raine, director of the Medicines and Health Products Agency (MHRA), told the BBC.

The UK has secured 40 million. 20 mg of Pfizer vaccine can be administered. people. Since the British government has decided to vaccinate only people over the age of 16, the UK will be able to vaccinate some 55 million people. people. In total, Britain ordered 357 million. seven planned doses of vaccines, including 100 million much cheaper vaccines from Oxford University that are less effective than Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

Now that the first part of the vaccine has arrived from the Pfizer plant in Belgium, a company specializing in medical logistics is conducting inspections to ensure that no damage has occurred during transport. This process can take a day.

Each vaccine box, containing five boxes of 975 doses each, will be manually opened and unpacked at specially licensed locations. Then the vaccines will be distributed to hospitals.

Delivery of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is difficult because it must be stored at a very low temperature during shipping, around minus 70 degrees Celsius. Fortunately, the vaccine is stable for several days at normal refrigerator temperature (2-8 degrees Celsius), which means that it can stay in place for several days. After thawing the vaccine for a few hours, it will take some time to prepare it for injection.

The Public Health Agency of England has purchased 58 special ultra-low temperature freezers, Twin Guard, which can hold around 5 million. doses of vaccines. Each stationary freezer holds approximately 86,000 servings.

Residents will not only be vaccinated in hospitals. The service will gradually expand to local medical offices and other local health centers.

Although nursing home residents are at the top of the list for the population to be vaccinated first, they will not yet be vaccinated, as it will not yet be possible to divide 975 doses of vaccine packages, making it difficult to deliver vaccines to homes of individual elders.

The NHS hopes that the authorities will soon approve a safe way to divide the dose packs so that the vaccines reach the nursing home in December.

During the first phase of the immunization program, the United Kingdom included nine different population groups aged 50 years and over on its priority list.

The government expects up to 99 percent of those most at risk of dying from COVID 19 will be vaccinated during the first phase of the campaign.



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