A UK grandmother has become the first woman and first-ever person to get the COVID-19 vaccine shot in a huge vaccine project in the United Kingdom.
Margaret Keenan will be celebrating her 91st birthday next week and according to her, it was her best pre-birthday gift.
That’s the first Pfizer vaccine shot out of almost 8 lac doses which will be given on a trial basis in the upcoming weeks. Almost a total of four million shots will be given till the month-end.
People aged more than 80 and medical care staff will be provided with the vaccines with the aim to save people who are more likely to get the virus.
Margaret Keenan’s vaccine is being administered at University Hospital by May Parsons in Coventry. Margaret is from Enniskillen.
She said that I feel so fortunate to get a vaccine shot against COVID-19 first. It’s the best pre-birthday present for me as now after being alone this year I can spend more time with friends and family in the upcoming year.
“There are no words of gratitude towards May and the whole NHS who take care of me and I advise others to get vaccinated because if a 90-year-old like me can have it you can too,” she added.
After approval of the vaccine last week the United Kingdom becomes the first country globally to initiate using the Pfizer vaccine.
Matt Hancock, UK Health secretary said that there’s a long way but this vaccine proved to the way out of the difficult situation. I had mixed emotions this morning stating that he was both frightened and happy when Margaret got her shot but also very persistent that as a nation we have to be united by laws in this situation as this virus is lethal.
UK’s PM Johnson paid his gratitude to the National Health services and all the volunteers and researchers who have done hard work on the development of this vaccine and to others who followed rules and keep others safe so that we will get rid of this fatal virus together.
The 40 million vaccine doses will be given to almost twenty million people in the upcoming weeks as ordered in almost two courses of time. More than forty million vaccines will have to arrive by the end of the month as these are not enough.
Health Minister expected to provide some weeks for the vulnerable group of people to get vaccinated.
Health correspondent BBC Nick said that it’s a big mission for NHS to do this vaccination program safely from storing the vaccine at very low freezing temperatures and providing people with discontinuous vaccine shots.
There’s been an error in manufacturing vaccines due to which the country is facing a shortage of 10m vaccine doses which has been planned to provide till the end of the year.
Regardless of this, the country is still expecting a second vaccine in a few weeks which is at the regulatory trail and is prepared by Oxford along with AstraZeneca Drug company.
