(Adds more detail)
LONDON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Britain began inoculating its
citizens with the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine against COVID-19 on
Monday, giving the shot to Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis
patient, at a hospital a few hundred metres away from where the
vaccine was developed.
Pinker, a retired maintenance manager, paid tribute to the
scientists who had developed the shot, saying he was looking
forward to celebrating his wedding anniversary.
"I am so pleased to be getting the COVID vaccine today and
really proud that it is one that was invented in Oxford," he
said in a statement released by the health service.
"The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant
and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding
anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year."
Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group and
chief investigator into the trial of the shot, also received the
vaccine, the National Health Service (NHS) said.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout and Guy Faulconbridge, editing by
Estelle Shirbon)