First Injection Of AstraZeneca Vaccine For Dialysis Patients

Photo illustration (Kristine Wook / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Britain has started injecting its citizens with the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine. One of the people getting vaccinated is Brian Pinker. He became the first dialysis patient to be injected with the vaccine.

Pinker is now 82 years old. He was injected in a hospital a few hundred meters from where the vaccine was developed.

After being vaccinated, the retired maintenance manager paid tribute to the scientists who have developed the anti-COVID-19 vaccine. Pinker says can't wait to celebrate his wedding anniversary.

"I am very pleased to have the COVID vaccine today and very proud that it was found in Oxford," he said in a statement released by the health care agency.

"The nurses, doctors and staff today were all brilliant and I'm now really looking forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year," Pinker added.

The UK has ordered 100 million doses of Oxford / AstraZeneca injections, also launched a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. Chief of Nursing at the NHS Foundation Oxford University Hospital Sam Foster spoke of his pride in delivering the first dose of the Oxford vaccine outside of clinical trials.

"It is a privilege to be able to deliver the first Oxford vaccine at Churchill Hospital here in Oxford, just a few hundred meters from where it was developed," he said.

"We hope to vaccinate more patients and health and care staff," he continued.

The head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, Andrew Pollard, and chief investigator of the injection trial, also received the vaccine. He said that with a record daily number of cases, the next few weeks would be a challenge despite the optimism given by the Oxford vaccine rollout.

"This is a very critical moment. We are at the point of being overwhelmed by this disease. I think it (the vaccine) gives us a little hope, but I think we are facing a few difficult weeks ahead," he told BBC TV.