(Adding information from statement, vaccine related background)
December 24 (Reuters) – More than 600,000 people in the UK have received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine since inoculations began in the country earlier this month, the British government said on Thursday.
“The government has released figures today that show the number of people who received the vaccine between 8 December and 20 December in the UK is 616,933,” the Department of Health and Social Care said in a bit statement. ly / 3mNRZwH.
Earlier this month, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to release the vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech.
In total, Britain has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he expects to receive millions of doses by the end of the year.
Vaccines were given to care home residents, those aged 80 and over and health and social care workers through more than 500 vaccine sites, the government said.
British drug dealer AstraZeneca Plc submitted a complete data package about the COVID-19 vaccine to the UK medicines regulator, Hancock said on Wednesday.
June Raine, Head of Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, told Reuters on Thursday that the regulator has begun the analysis of the data and will make a decision in the “shortest possible time.”
Separately, a spokesman for the Department of Health told Reuters that some staff at the Milton Keynes laboratory, the UK ‘s largest laboratory, were positive for COVID-19.
A new version of the coronavirus has been spreading rapidly in Britain recently with large swarms of England subjected to their strict COVID-19 restrictions.
The mutation called line B.1.1.7 can be up to 70% more contagious and more worrying for children. It has wreaked havoc in Britain, sparking a wave of travel bans that are disrupting trade with Europe and threatening to further divide the islands.
Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Edited by Nick Macfie and Cynthia Osterman