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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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’
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...World Health Organization leaders have warned vaccines do not mean the end of the coronavirus pandemic, and renewed their advice to follow guidelines during the Christmas and new year period
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Matt Hancock has reiterated that the UK is the first country in the world to have a clinically approved coronavirus vaccine for supply, and the government was prepared for it to be 'ready to go' once approval came through.
Batch testing has been completed for the first 800,000 doses of the vaccine that will be available for the whole of the UK, Hancock said. Britain has ordered stocks of seven different vaccines, comprising 350m doses in total. The NHS will start vaccinating from 'early next week'
Continue reading...People should be confident in the safety of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine, the chief executive of the UK regulator said. Dr June Raine, head of the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said the vaccine had been subjected to rigorous testing and had met strict standards of safety and quality
Continue reading...‘Historic moment’ allows mass immunisation, with 800,000 doses expected to be available next week
The UK has become the first western country to license a vaccine against Covid, opening the way for mass immunisation with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to begin next week for those most at risk.
The vaccine has been authorised for emergency use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), before decisions by the US and Europe. The MHRA was given power to approve the vaccine by the government under special regulations before 1 January, when it will become fully responsible for medicines authorisation in the UK after Brexit.
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