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LONDON: Britain is preparing to become the first country to roll out the Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine this week, initially making the injection available in hospitals before distributing stocks to doctors’ clinics, said the government on Sunday (December 6).
The first doses will be given on Tuesday, and the National Health Service (NHS) will give top priority to vaccinating those over 80, frontline healthcare workers and nursing home staff and residents.
Britain approved the emergency use of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech last week, advancing the global race to start the most crucial mass inoculation program in history.
In all, Britain has ordered 40 million doses, enough to vaccinate 20 million people in the country of 67 million.
About 800,000 doses are expected to be available during the first week.
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The initial doses that have arrived from Belgium are stored in secure locations throughout the country, where their quality will be controlled, the Health Ministry said.
The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine has burdensome storage requirements. It should be kept at -70 ° C (-94 ° F) and only lasts for five days in a normal refrigerator.
For that reason, the Health Ministry said the vaccine would be administered first in 50 hospitals. He said it would take a few hours to thaw each vaccine and prepare it for use.
NHS England has written to general practitioners, telling them to prepare to start vaccinating through local medical services from 14 December.
Instead of running clinics in individual surgeries, groups of local doctors will operate more than 1,000 vaccination centers across the country, the government said.
READ: UK medical chiefs forecast major drop in COVID-19 deaths in early 2021
The vaccine cartons contain five 975-dose packages, but special regulatory approval is required to divide them. A senior medical official has said that while he was hopeful that the packages could be divided and delivered directly to nursing homes, it was not guaranteed.
Britain is among the first nations to implement vaccines outside the context of a clinical trial, raising hope that the tide may soon turn against a virus that has killed nearly 1.5 million people worldwide and has hit the world economy.
Russia began distributing its Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine through 70 clinics in Moscow on Saturday, although the injection has not finished its final tests.
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