An 82-year-old dialysis patient became the first man in the United Kingdom to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday, 4 January. The dialysis patient, Brian Pinker, a retired maintenance manager, was admitted to a hospital in close proximity from where the vaccine was developed, reported Reuters.
Appreciating the doctors and nurses, Pinker said, “I am so pleased to be getting the COVID vaccine today and really proud that it is one that was invented in Oxford,” according to a statement released by the National Health Service, quoted Reuters.
Britain began inoculating its citizens with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday. The head of Oxford Vaccine Group and a chief investigator in the vaccine trials, Andrew Pollard, also received the coronavirus vaccine shot on Monday, according to NHS, reported Reuters.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is cheaper to manufacture and store than its counterpart BioNTech’s Pfizer, which has been handed out to healthcare workers and elderly citizens since 8 December, reported Al Jazeera.
Over 530,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have been ordered in the UK with the goal of vaccinating as many people possible with the first shot, reported Al Jazeera.
A recently identified new strain of coronavirus was detected in the UK in September. It has raised alarms across the world for being 70 percent more transmissible, leading to lockdown in parts of England and travel restrictions imposed by several countries, including India.
(With inputs from Reuters, Al Jazeera)
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