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UK health authorities made the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine available today, kicking off a global immunization program that should be stepped up as more serums are approved. The first dose was administered in one of the hospitals in a network distributed throughout the country, where the initial phase of the program has already been called V-Day, health officials announced.
The first person in the UK to receive the covid-19 vaccine, developed by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, was a 90-year-old woman.
Margaret Keenan was filmed while being vaccinated around 6:30 a.m. (GMT), at Coventry University Hospital in central England.
British regulators gave the green light last week to this vaccine, which from today will begin to be administered to risk groups in the United Kingdom.
The country achieved this breakthrough in the vaccination project, after British regulators gave emergency authorization on December 2 for the vaccine produced by the US drug manufacturer Pfizer and the German company BioNTech.
Officials from the United States and the European Union are also reviewing the vaccine, along with other “rival” preparations developed by the American biotechnology company Modern, and for a collaboration between the University of Oxford and drug maker AstraZeneca.
On Saturday, Russia began vaccinating thousands of doctors, teachers and other high-risk groups in dozens of centers in Moscow with its Sputnik V vaccine.
This program is viewed differently, as Russia authorized the use of the vaccine in the summer, after it was tested on only a few dozen people.
The first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were delivered to a select group of hospitals in the UK on Sunday.
At one of these facilities, Croydon University Hospital, south London, staff members couldn’t even touch the bottles, but were delighted to have them alone in the building.
The vaccine will not arrive as quickly as it would be desirable in the United Kingdom, which has more than 61,000 deaths, more than any other country in Europe, and more than 1.7 million cases of Covid-19.
The 800,000 doses are only a fraction of what is needed. The Government targets more than 25 million people, about 40% of the population, in the first phase of its vaccination program, giving priority to those most at risk of contracting the disease.
The second group will be people over 80 years of age and home workers. The program will expand as supply increases.
In England, the vaccine will be delivered to 50 hospitals in the first phase of the program, and more hospitals are expected to make it available as the program develops.
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are making their own plans under the UK’s decentralized administration system.
Logistical problems are delaying the distribution of the Pfizer vaccine, because it has to be stored at a very low negative temperature: -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees Fahrenheit).
Authorities are also targeting large-scale distribution points because each vaccine package contains 975 doses and they don’t want any to be lost.
The UK has agreed to buy millions of doses from seven different producers.
Governments around the world are making deals with various creators to ensure that products that are eventually approved for widespread use are delivered.
c / The day after tomorrow
