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Vaccinations are scheduled to begin Tuesday in England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland said it would start administering the vaccine at the beginning of the week, but did not specify what day.
The process, which is complicated by the need to store the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine under strict conditions and give each recipient two doses, three weeks apart, will be closely monitored from around the world.
Saffron Cordery, deputy executive director of NHS Providers, told Sky News on Sunday that 50 hospitals in England had already received their allocation of the vaccine, and that the distribution of the vaccine was “really well on track.”
UK health officials expect to have up to 4 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, which offers up to 95% protection against Covid-19, available by the end of December, Cordery said.
The government has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine so far, enough to vaccinate 20 million people, or a third of the UK population. More deaths from Covid-19 have been recorded in the UK than anywhere else in Europe.
“Yes, it has been shorter than other vaccine approval processes, but that is because everything has been launched at once,” he said.
The head of the UK drug regulator also offered assurances on Sunday, saying that the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine is “as safe as any general vaccine” and that those who receive it will be monitored by health officials.
“You may have a mild symptom, but it will probably go away in a day or two, and nothing at all of a serious nature,” June Raine, head of the UK Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), told the BBC. .
“Our goal at HMRA is to make sure that whatever the outcome, whatever the treatment, drugs, medical devices and vaccines reach everyone in all parts of the country in the same way without any interruption,” Raine said.
Logistical challenge
The first doses of the vaccine reportedly arrived in the UK on Thursday evening, transported by a fleet of unmarked trucks through the Eurotunnel from Belgium to undisclosed storage facilities in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. , according to CNN affiliate ITV News.
The UK government’s announcement of its approval a day earlier had been followed by confusion over who would get the vaccine first and how it could be safely administered, given logistical limitations.
The UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) recommended vaccinating nursing home residents and staff first, followed by people over 80, as well as healthcare and care workers.
But the challenges of getting the vaccine to nursing home residents mean that healthcare workers now plan to give it first to people over the age of 80 who are about to be discharged from the hospital or attending. outpatient hospital appointments.
“Hospitals will also start inviting more than 80 to receive a needle stick and will work with home care providers to book their staff at vaccination clinics,” a statement from England’s NHS said on Sunday. “Any quotes that are not used for these groups will be used for healthcare workers who are at higher risk for serious illness from Covid.”
Raine told the BBC that the exact timing could be “variable”, but that he expected the vaccine to reach nursing homes “definitely in the next two weeks.”
The Northern Ireland Health Ministry said on Friday that an initial shipment of nearly 25,000 doses arrived, paving the way for “vaccines to start early next week, starting with vaccination teams.”
Scotland will receive 65,000 doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine from the initial batch of 800,000 doses distributed in the UK, Scottish Secretary of State Alister Jack said in an opinion piece for the Mail on Sunday.
He added that the Armed Forces were involved in the planning and logistics of the vaccination program.
Scotland’s Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said those who would administer the vaccines would be the first to receive them, followed by nursing home residents and staff, then everyone 80 and over, and social care and nursing home workers. frontline health.
He acknowledged the challenges around transporting the vaccine to nursing homes and individual residences, but added: “Despite all the difficulties that lie ahead, it should give us all real hope that the end of the pandemic is at hand. view”.
Excuse me fauci
Other nations are not far behind the UK when it comes to making a decision on vaccine approval.
Dr Anthony Fauci, America’s leading infectious disease expert, apologized Thursday after suggesting a day earlier that UK regulators had not scrutinized data on the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine as carefully as their American counterparts. .
News of the approval of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine was greeted by many Britons like a ray of light at the end of a dark year.
There is hope that UK approval for Moderna and the candidate vaccine developed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford may soon follow.
But the four UK chief doctors warned in a letter that this winter would still be “especially tough” and that people should not lower their guard against the virus.
“While the very welcome news about vaccines means that we can look to 2021 with greater optimism, the deployment of the vaccine will only have a marginal impact on reducing the number of people entering the healthcare service with Covid over the next three months. “they said.
Russia starts mass vaccination
Russia became the first country in the world to approve its coronavirus vaccine in August, authorizing the treatment for public use even before crucial Phase 3 trials were carried out, which are still ongoing. The move drew criticism from scientific circles.
“Civil vaccination started today at 70 points in Moscow. We work from 8 am to 8 pm, seven days a week,” Natalya Nikolaevna Kuzenkova, chief physician at Moscow Hospital 68, told CNN on Saturday.
Kuzenkova ignored the questions about vaccine safety. “If there is a question between getting sick or getting a vaccine … this is a very dangerous disease that leads to quite serious consequences. So the answer is obvious here,” he said.
“The vaccine has been officially registered. Two stages of clinical trials have passed and we are now completing the third stage. Therefore, in the context of a pandemic, under these conditions, this does not contradict any regulatory norm at all,” he added. .
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin suggested early participation was enthusiastic, saying that more than 5,000 people had signed up for vaccination in the first five hours.
One of those who got vaccinated Saturday told CNN that “at this point” she was not afraid to get the vaccine before the trials are over.
“Well, of course there are some concerns. But I try not to think about that,” said the woman, who works as an administrator at the hospital and identified herself only as Nadezhda. “I wanted to get immunity against the new Covid-19 infection. Protect myself and my family. So as not to get sick, not have complications, not infect my loved ones.”
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said last week that more than 100,000 Russian citizens had already received the Sputnik V vaccine.
Authorities say there are enough doses for more than 2 million people in Russia, which has a population of around 145 million.
CNN’s Sharon Braithwaite, Amy Cassidy, Zamira Rahim, and Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.
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