The UK is launching the AstraZeneca vaccine, crying in the fight against coronavirus

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain began vaccinating its population with COVID-19 shot developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca on Monday, promoting a scientific “triumph” that puts it at the forefront of the West in inoculation against the virus.

The UK, which is rushing to vaccinate its population faster than the United States and the rest of Europe, is the first country to launch the Oxford / AstraZeneca coup, although Russia and China have been inoculating their citizens for months.

Less than a month after Britain became the first country in the world to launch the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech in Germany, 82-year-old dialysis patient Brian Pinker was the first to be shot in Oxford / AstraZeneca at 07:30 GMT.

“I am so excited to receive the COVID vaccine today and am very proud that it was invented in Oxford,” said Pinker, a retired maintenance manager who underwent dialysis for kidney disease, just a few hundred meters away. the place where the vaccine was developed.

Pinker was looking forward to celebrating his 48th wedding anniversary with his wife Shirley in February.

“Today’s nurses, doctors and staff were all brilliant,” he said.

Britain, facing the sixth highest death toll in the world and one of the worst economic successes in the COVID crisis, has already put more than a million COVID-19 vaccines into arms – more than the rest of Europe put together , said Health Secretary Matt Hancock. .

“This is a triumph of British science that we have managed to get to where we are,” Hancock told Sky. “Right from the start, I saw that the vaccine was the only way out in the long run.”

The government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has provided 100 million doses of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine that can be stored at refrigerator temperatures between two and eight degrees, making it easier to distribute than the Pfizer shot.

Six hospitals in England administer the first of 530,000 doses prepared by the UK. The program will be expanded to hundreds of other British sites in the coming days, and the government hopes to deliver tens of millions of doses in a few months.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it has administered 4.2 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines since Saturday morning and distributed 13.07 million doses.

But Israel is the world leader: more than a tenth of its population has been vaccinated, and Israel now administers more than 150,000 doses a day.

VACCINE RACE

The UK has become the first Western country to approve and launch a COVID-19 vaccine, betting that advancing with a vaccine will allow it to emerge from the COVID crisis sooner than other countries, giving Johnson a rare opportunity to shine.

Other Western countries have taken a longer and more cautious approach to launching vaccines, although Russia and China have inoculated their citizens for months with several different vaccines that are still undergoing late-stage studies.

On December 31, China approved its first COVID-19 vaccine for general public use, a photo taken by an affiliate of state-backed pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm. The company said it is 79% effective against the virus.

Russia said on November 24 that its Sputnik V vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya Institute, is 91.4% effective based on the intermediate results of late studies. Vaccinations began in August and have so far inoculated more than 100,000 people.

India approved the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday for emergency use.

A precautionary measure was introduced by ITV political editor Robert Peston, who said scientists were not fully confident that COVID-19 vaccines would work on a new variant of the coronavirus found in South Africa.

THE COVIDE CRISIS

More than 75,000 people in the UK have died from COVID, although a larger number puts the death toll at 82,624, and cases are rising sharply, fueled by a separate variant of the virus.

Johnson said on Sunday that tougher restrictions would likely be introduced, even with millions of citizens already living below the strictest level of rules.

Currently, England is divided into four different levels of restrictions, depending on the prevalence of the virus, and Hancock said the rules in some parts of the country at level 3 do not work clearly.

Asked if the government intends to impose a new national blockade, Hancock said: “We do not rule anything out.”

The spread of the virus variant has also forced the government to change its approach to vaccination. The United Kingdom gives priority to receiving a first dose of vaccine in as many people as possible over the administration of second doses. Delaying the distribution of two photos should help extend the supply.

Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group and chief investigator of the shooting process, also received the vaccine.

“This is a very critical time. We are about to be overwhelmed by this disease, “he told BBC TV. “I think it gives us little hope, but I think we have a few difficult weeks ahead.”