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By Alistair Smout
LONDON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Britain began inoculating its
citizens with the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine 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."
Britain has ordered 100 million doses of the
Oxford/AstraZeneca shot, and is also rolling out a vaccine
developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
Sam Foster, the Chief Nursing Officer at Oxford University
Hospitals NHS Foundation, spoke of her pride at giving the first
dose of the Oxford vaccine outside of a clinical trial.
"It was a real privilege to be able to deliver the first
Oxford Vaccine at the Churchill Hospital here in Oxford, just a
few hundred metres from where it was developed," she said. "We
look forward to vaccinating many more patients and health and
care staff."
Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group and
chief investigator into the trial of the shot, also received the
vaccine.
He said that with record daily case numbers, the next few
weeks would be a challenge despite the optimism provided by
rollout of Oxford's vaccine.
"This is a really critical moment. We are at the point of
being overwhelmed by this disease," he told BBC TV. "I think it
gives us a bit of hope, but I think we've got some tough weeks
ahead."
(Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Estelle
Shirbon and Michael Holden)
