90 year old lady is first person in the world to receive Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in UK

London, Dec 08: A 90 year old woman from Northern Ireland became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine outside trial conditions. This marks the start of UK's mass vaccination programme.

After being administered the dose, Margaret Keenan, from Enniskillen, said she felt so privileged to receive the jab at University Hospital, Coventry. I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against COVID-19. It is the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means, I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year, she said.

She also said that she can't May and the NHS staff who have looked after her tremendously and my advise to anyone offered the vaccine is to take it. If I can have it at 90, then you can have it too Keenan said.

Meanwhile Hari Shukla, a race relations campaigner in north England and a retired teachers would be among the first to get the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.

Shukla, 87 and his wife, Ranjan, 83 will receive the first of the two doses at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in New Castle. They are the among the over 80 year olds prioritised to get the first of the 800,000 doses in 50 hospitals across the UK. The vaccine is administered two doses, 21 days apart.

Britain started rolling out the Pfizer and BioNTech developed COVID-19 vaccine from today. Britain becomes the first western country to start vaccinating its general population.

The deployment of this vaccine marks a decisive turning point in the battle with the pandemic, said NHS chief executive Simon Stevens. NHS staff are proud to be leading the way as the first health service in the world to begin vaccination with this Covid jab, he also said.

Britain has ordered 40 million doses of the vaccine. Each person requires two doses and this would be enough to vaccinate 20 million people in the country of 67 million.

In the first week, around 800,000 doses are expected to be available, with care home residents and carers, those above 80 and some health service workers, the top priority get them.

United Kingdom became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for widespread use.

MHRA, the British regular said that the jab which offers up to 95 per cent protection against COVID-19 illness is safe for roll out.

Pfizer and BioNTech said in November that their COVID-19 vaccine was found 95 per cent effective in the final analysis of the Phase 3 trial, including in people aged over 65 years, paving the way for the companies to apply for emergency authorisation from US regulators within days

American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said they have concluded phase 3 study of their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162b2, meeting all primary efficacy end points