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* UK first to roll out AstraZeneca
* UK has vaccinated 1 million people
* Oxford/AstraZeneca shot can be stored in fridge
* China and Russia vaccinate their populations
(Adds first patient to get the vaccine)
By William James and Guy Faulconbridge
LONDON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Britain began vaccinating its
population on Monday with the COVID-19 shot developed by Oxford
University and AstraZeneca, touting its position as the
first Western country to roll out an inoculation programme
against the novel coronavirus.
Britain, which is rushing to vaccinate its population faster
than the United States and the rest of Europe in a bid to put
the pandemic behind it, is the first country to roll out the
Oxford/AstraZeneca shot.
It last year rolled out the Pfizer and Germany's
BioNTech vaccine. Dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, was the
first to get the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot at 0730 GMT at Oxford
University Hospital.
"I am so pleased to be getting the COVID vaccine today and
really proud that it is one that was invented in Oxford,"
Pinker, a retired maintenance manager who has been having
dialysis for kidney disease, said.
He said he was looking forward to celebrating his 48th
wedding anniversary with wife Shirley in February.
"The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been
brilliant," he said.
Britain has put more than 1 million COVID-19 vaccines into
arms already - more than the rest of Europe put together, Health
Secretary Matt Hancock said, adding that the roll out of the
Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was a triumph.
"That's a triumph of British science that we've managed to
get where we are," Hancock told Sky. "Right at the start, we saw
that the vaccine was the only way out long term."
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has secured 100
million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine which can be
stored at fridge temperatures between two to eight degrees,
making it easier to distribute than the Pfizer shot.
Six hospitals in England are administering the first of
around 530,000 doses Britain has ready. The programme will be
expanded to hundreds of other British sites in the coming days,
and the government hopes it will deliver tens of millions of
doses within months.
(Writing by William James and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by
Susan Fenton, Kate Holton and Raissa Kasolowsky)
