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Nursing home residents and their caregivers will be the first to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the UK, it has been confirmed.
The government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) has confirmed its priority list for the first phase of the mass launch of vaccines in the UK, which will begin early next week.
It comes after the UK became the first country in the world approve the Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use.
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The Pfizer vaccine has undergone an ‘extremely thorough and scientifically rigorous review’
The JCVI priority list for the first phase of the vaccine launch is as follows:
1 – Residents of a nursing home and their carers
2 – Everyone over 80 years of age. Frontline health and social care workers
3 – Everyone over 75 years old
4 – All those over 70 years of age. Clinically extremely vulnerable individuals
5 – Everyone over 65
6 – All people aged 16 to 64 with underlying health problems that put them at increased risk of serious illness and mortality.
7 – Everyone over 60 years old
8 – Everyone over 55 years old
9 – Everyone over 50 years old
Two groups will not receive the vaccine:
1 – Pregnant women
2 – Most children under the age of 16
The vaccine has not been recommended for pregnant women as there is no data on its safety.
“Women should be advised not to present themselves for vaccination if they may be pregnant or planning pregnancy within three months of the first dose,” the JCVI noted.
It will also not be generally available for children. The JCVI stated that “after infection, almost all children will have an asymptomatic infection or mild illness” and, as such, do not need it.
However, it will be available for “those children with a very high risk of exposure and severe outcomes, such as older children with severe neuro disabilities who require residential care.”
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Is this the vaccine the world is waiting for?
Dr June Raine, executive director of the UK Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said the regulator used an ongoing review to complete its vaccine evaluation in the shortest time possible, with hundreds of experts studying more than a thousand pages. of data.
Dr. Raine emphasized that no corners were cut in this rapid assessment, rather, the clinical phases of the trial were completed in an overlapping fashion, with separate elements working in parallel to perform the review.
The test was “equivalent to all international standards,” said Dr. Raine, adding: “The public can be absolutely sure that the standards we have worked with are equivalent to the standards around the world.”
Explaining the priorities of who will receive the vaccine, Professor Wei Shen Lim said: “Vaccines are offered to protect people who are most at risk of dying from COVID-19, as well as to protect health and welfare services. because in doing so we also protect lives. “
Professor Lim, who chairs the JCVI, said that age was the most important factor in the estimated risk of mortality, and that everyone in the country over the age of 50 will be vaccinated by the end of phase one.
“The vaccine appears to be safe and well tolerated, and there were no clinically worrisome safety observations,” according to the JCVI, adding that the data indicate that it is highly effective in all age groups.
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NHS ‘ready’ for COVID vaccine launch
Studies have shown that the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective and works in all age groups, and the government has secured 40 million doses of the vaccine, which must be refrigerated at -70 ° C (-94 ° F) .
Ten million doses are expected in the UK by the end of the year. Although patients need two doses to obtain the full effect, there is evidence of partial protection 12 days after the first dose.
According to Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed, people who receive both doses of the vaccine will become completely immune seven days after their second dose.
Where will the vaccines be administered?
There will be “three modes of administration” of the vaccine, according to the health secretary, with hospitals, mass vaccination centers and general practitioners and pharmacists who will offer the vaccine to those most in need.
“Fifty hospitals across the country are already installed and waiting to receive the vaccine as soon as it is approved, so now it can happen,” he added.
The 50 hospitals are:
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Brighton and Sussex Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Countess of the Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Croydon University Hospital NHS Trust
Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust
Dorset County Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust
East Kent Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (Colchester Hospital)
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Guys & St Thomas NHS Trust
James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Kings College Hospital -Princess Royal University Hospital
Lancashire Teaching Hospital Trust
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Leicester NHS Trust Association
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Medway NHS Foundation Trust
Mid and South Essex Hospital Trust
Milton Keynes University Hospital
Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital
Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust
North Bristol NHS Foundation Trust North West Anglia Foundation Trust
University of Nottingham Hospitals NHS Trust
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
Portsmouth Hospital University Trust
Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Foundation
Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust
St George’s University Hospitals NHS FT
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
University Hospitals Trust
Birmingham University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Coventry and Warwickshire University Hospital
Derby Burton NHS FT University Hospitals
North Midlands University Hospital NHS Trust
Plymouth NHS Trust University Hospitals
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust
West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Wirral University Hospital
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust
Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
These centers are not necessarily where all patients will receive their vaccines, but they are sites that will be able to store vaccines and coordinate their distribution.
Hancock said vaccines will begin with the elderly, people in nursing homes and their caregivers, before the vaccines are delivered to the appropriate locations for their placement on the priority list.
Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething seemed to suggest that the decentralized administration could not deliver the vaccine to nursing homes.
However, his statement also added that Wales would use “mobile teams to make the vaccine as accessible as possible to all who need it.”
The vaccines will arrive in the UK from the Pfizer plant in Belgium and will be delivered to a central warehouse where the batches will be analyzed for quality control purposes.
Once the vaccine batches are approved, they will be moved into storage freezers and then delivered to all 50 hospitals in the UK, all while being stored at cryogenic temperatures.
The vaccine must be thawed before it can be used, which takes several hours, and then additional time is needed to prepare the vaccine for administration.
