LONDON (Reuters) - A 90-year-old grandmother became the world’s first person to receive a fully-tested COVID-19 shot on Tuesday, as Britain began mass-vaccinating its people in a global drive that poses one of the biggest logistical challenges in peacetime history.
Health workers started inoculating the most vulnerable with the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, with the country a test case for the world as it contends with distributing a compound that must be stored at -70C (-94F).
Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 in a week, was the first to receive the shot, at a hospital in Coventry, central England.
Pfizer received another boost when the U.S. regulator’s staff raised no new safety or efficacy issues.
Britain, the worst-hit in Europe with over 61,000 deaths, is the first Western nation to begin mass vaccinations and the first globally to administer the Pfizer/BioNTech shot.
But despite the relief of people receiving the first of the two-dose regimen, they will have to wait three weeks for their second shot, and there is no evidence immunisation will reduce transmission of the virus.
Britain has ordered enough supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot to vaccinate 20 million people in the country of 67 million. The developers said it was 95% effective in preventing illness in final-stage trials.
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