Category Archives: Vaccines and immunisation

NHS told not to give Covid vaccine to those with history of allergic reactions

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Two health service workers experienced symptoms after receiving Pfizer vaccine

People with a history of significant allergic reactions should not receive the Covid vaccine, the medicines regulator has said, after two NHS workers experienced symptoms on Wednesday.

Both of the NHS staff carry adrenaline autoinjectors, suggesting they have suffered reactions in the past. These kind of devices, of which the best-known brand is the EpiPen, administer a swift adrenaline boost to counter allergic reactions that occur when some people, for instance, eat nuts.

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‘No point dying now, is there?’: 91-year-old’s vaccination interview goes viral – video

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Martin Kenyon, 91, was outside Guy’s Hospital in London after getting the Pfizer Covid vaccine when he was chanced upon by CNN correspondent Cyril Vanier. Asked how it felt to be one of the first people in the world to receive the jab, Kenyon said:’ I don’t think I feel much at all, except that I hope that I’m not going to have the bloody bug now.’

During the interview, which went viral after being shared by CNN’s Oliver Darcy on Twitter, Kenyon added that he intended to hug his family for Christmas. ‘I’m going home to tell them now. Nobody knows. You’re the first to know,’ he told Vanier.

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Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has 70% efficacy, full trial data shows

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Newly published data shows 90% efficacy only in small group who got half-dose first

The Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has efficacy of 90% in a small group who got a half-dose first, but only 62% in the majority, full trial data newly published in the Lancet has confirmed.

The results may create a quandary for regulatory bodies, which will have to decide on how the vaccine should be used if they approve it.

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Covid vaccine: UK woman, 90, becomes first in world to receive Pfizer jab

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Margaret Keenan was given vaccine on Tuesday morning in Coventry following its approval last week

Margaret Keenan, 90, became the first patient in the world to receive the Pfizer Covid-19 jab following its clinical approval as the NHS launched its biggest ever vaccine campaign on Tuesday.

Keenan received the jab at about 6.45am in Coventry, marking the start of a historic mass vaccination programme.

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UK trial to mix and match Covid vaccines to try to improve potency

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Pilot planned for January will give subjects a shot of both Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech versions

A trial is likely to go ahead in January to find out whether mixing and matching Covid vaccines gives better protection than two doses of the same one, the head of the British government’s taskforce has said.

The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid jab is an mRNA vaccine. Essentially, mRNA is a molecule used by living cells to turn the gene sequences in DNA into the proteins that are the building blocks of all their fundamental structures. A segment of DNA gets copied (“transcribed”) into a piece of mRNA, which in turn gets “read” by the cell’s tools for synthesising proteins.

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Matt Hancock: vaccine rollout ‘beginning of end’ of Covid pandemic – video

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The arrival of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine marks the ‘beginning of the end’ of the pandemic, the health secretary said, as hospitals across the country prepare to begin vaccinating the public on 8 December.

About 800,000 doses are expected to be available within the first week, with care home residents and carers, the over-80s and some health workers first to receive the shots

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WHO looks at giving Covid-19 to healthy people to speed up vaccine trials

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Advisory meeting will discuss feasibility of human challenge trials despite first jabs becoming available

The World Health Organization is holding discussions on Monday about the feasibility of trials in which healthy young volunteers are deliberately infected with coronavirus to hasten vaccine development – amid questions over whether they should go ahead given the promising data from the frontrunner vaccine candidates.

Some scientists have reservations about exposing volunteers to a virus for which there is no cure, although there are treatments that can help patients. However, proponents argue that the risks of Covid-19 to the young and healthy are minimal, and the benefits to society are high.

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Covid vaccine arrives in UK hospitals ready for first jabs

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Medical director warns of great hurdles in largest vaccination campaign in UK history

Batches of the Covid vaccine have begun to arrive in hospitals around the UK, ready for the first jabs on Tuesday in what NHS England’s medical director warned would be the largest and most complex vaccination campaign in the country’s history.

The UK’s record-breaking approval of the vaccine and the rapid start of immunisation against Covid-19 did not mean the end of the pandemic was in sight, said Prof Stephen Powis. It would be a marathon and not a sprint, he said.

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The vaccine miracle: how scientists waged the battle against Covid-19

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We trace the extraordinary research effort, from the discovery of the virus’s structure to the start of inoculations this week

In the early afternoon of 3 January this year, a small metal box was delivered to the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre addressed to virus expert Prof Zhang Yongzhen. Inside, packed in dry ice, were swabs from a patient who was suffering from a novel, occasionally fatal respiratory illness that was sweeping the city of Wuhan. Exactly what was causing terrifying rises in case numbers, medical authorities wanted to know? And how was the disease being spread?

Related: ‘I worked so hard in the lab. I cried when the news came’

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Military planes to fly vaccines in to Britain to avoid ports hit by Brexit

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Officials fear delays even after EU deal as Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen order talks to resume

Tens of millions of doses of the Covid-19 vaccine manufactured in Belgium will be flown to Britain by military aircraft to avoid delays at ports caused by Brexit, under contingency plans being developed by the government.

Both the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and senior sources at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed to the Observer on Saturday that large consignments would be brought in from 1 January by air if road, rail and sea routes were subject to widely expected delays after that date.

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Team behind Oxford Covid jab start final stage of malaria vaccine trials

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Vaccine could be in use by 2024 if next year’s human trials are successful

The Oxford team that has produced a successful coronavirus vaccine is about to enter the final stage of human trials in its quest for an inoculation against malaria.

The Jenner Institute director, Prof Adrian Hill, said the malaria vaccine would be tested on 4,800 children in Africa next year after early trials yielded promising results.

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Moscow delivers Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to clinics

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Health workers and teachers have priority in first mass immunisation programme

Moscow’s coronavirus taskforce said on Saturday that it was distributing the Sputnik V vaccine to 70 clinics, marking Russia’s first mass Covid-19 immunisation.

The taskforce said the Russian-made vaccine would be made available first to doctors and other medical workers, teachers and social workers because they ran the highest risk of exposure to the disease.

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How vaccine approval compares between the UK, Europe and the US

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The regulatory fast-tracking of the Covid vaccine in Britain by MHRA has led some to question its methods

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) in the UK has not had a round of applause from anyone other than the UK’s politicians and the vaccine companies. It gave temporary authorisation to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Wednesday and within hours, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) put out a stiff statement implying more work was needed than the UK regulator had done. Its own decision could come as late as 29 December. It may well have been needled by the crowing of the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who claimed the fast approval as a Brexit triumph. He had to backtrack. The MHRA’s chief executive, June Raine, pointed out that the agency had simply taken advantage of a provision that any country in Europe could use, to fast-track approval in a pandemic.

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Beating the anti-vaxxers: how star power can help squash vaccine myths

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Analysis: Vaccine hesitancy is growing, thanks in part to social media misinformation. Time for the Elvis approach?

The statement by the US president-elect, Joe Biden, that he would be happy to be publicly vaccinated against coronavirus to encourage people to follow suit – following similar pledges from Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton – highlights a fundamental concern in global health circles.

Vaccine hesitancy – as well as anti-vaccination activism, sometimes promoted by celebrities – is growing. Countries that were once measles-free are seeing new cases due to suspicion over vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy was listed a year ago as one of the World Health Organization’s 10 global health threats to watch, alongside Ebola and the threat of a global influenza pandemic. Coronavirus came instead.

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European and US experts question UK’s fast-track of Covid vaccine

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Some criticise jingoistic tone of announcement and say longer process may prove preferable

Politicians, health professionals and commentators in Europe and the US have questioned Britain’s decision to fast-track approval of a coronavirus vaccine and criticised what some saw as the jingoistic tone of its announcement.

The UK on Wednesday became the first country in the world to approve a Covid-19 vaccine when the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) granted the Pfizer/BioNTech shot emergency authorisation for clinical use.

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Williamson on vaccine approval: Britain is ‘a much better country than all of them’ – video

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Gavin Williamson told LBC's Nick Ferrari that the UK was the first country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, ahead of the EU and the US, because, "we're much better".

"I just think we have the very best people in this country and we've got the best medical regulators. Much better than the French have, much better than the Belgians have, much better than the Americans have," he added when pushed on whether Brexit played a part

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Gavin Williamson: UK is ‘a much better country than every single one of them’

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Education secretary lauds vaccine rollout saying scientists in UK better than in France, Belgium or US

The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has claimed the UK was the first country in the world to clinically approve a coronavirus vaccine because the country has “much better” scientists than France, Belgium or the US.

Williamson said he was not surprised the UK was the first to roll out the immunisation because “we’re a much better country than every single one of them”.

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‘The scientists have done it’: Boris Johnson hails Covid vaccine

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PM says news brings ‘sure and certain knowledge’ that people can reclaim their lives

Boris Johnson has declared that the nation is no longer resting on the hope of a return to normality by spring but instead has the “certain knowledge” that people can reclaim their lives, as he hailed the arrival of the newly approved Covid-19 vaccine.

The prime minister told a Downing Street press conference on Wednesday that “the scientists have done it”, although he stressed that people should not get carried away with “over-optimism”, insisting that they continue to abide by the rules.

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UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson leads Downing Street briefing after vaccine approved for use

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Latest updates: PM holds press conference after earlier warning people not to ‘get hopes up too soon’ about early vaccination

Stevens is talking about the vaccination guidelines. (See 11.23am.)

The roll-out will be phased, he says.

Johnson urges people in tier 3 areas to take part in community testing.

And people should follow the restrictions, he says.

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