The first set of Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines have arrived at hospitals in the UK for use as early as Tuesday.
Croydon University Hospital is among the first to receive the much-anticipated vaccine, which must be stored at extremely low temperatures or around -70C (-94F).
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the government’s deputy chief medical officer, said earlier last week the vaccine was a “complex product with a very fragile cold chain".“It’s not a yoghurt that can be taken out of the fridge and put back in multiple times,” he told a Downing Street press conference.“It’s really tricky to handle.”
And it's those difficulties with transportation and storage that mean elderly care home residents - who had been first in line to receive the jab - will no longer be the first recipients due to difficulties transporting the doses.The first batches arrived in the UK last week and are being stored at sites across the four nations, ready be given to NHS staff, care home staff and the over-80s in the coming weeks.
It is thought elderly people attending hospital as an outpatient, those being discharged home after a hospital stay will be amongst the first to get the jab.
Others over the age of 80 will be invited to attend the hospital "hubs" to receive a jab, and care home providers will be able to book their staff into vaccination clinics.
It is hoped care home residents will be vaccinated soon.
On Friday, Business Secretary Alok Sharma insisted to ITV News that deployment in care homes across the country would take place in December.
While Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said the vaccination programme will be “a marathon, it’s not a sprint”.Explaining the difficulties with rolling out a vaccine that needs to be kept at ultra-low temperatures, Mr Hopson told BBC Breakfast: "Think of a large pizza box, is the way that we’re describing it, that’s got to be stored in a fridge at minus 70C."To be frank, the only way you can really do that at the moment is to store them inside NHS hospital hubs."
In addition, batches of the vaccine can only be moved four times and doses have to be given three weeks apart - "so it’s quite complex," Mr Hopson said."So, what we’re going to be doing is, hospitals are at the moment talking to care home providers to say how can we get your staff to come into those hospital hubs so we can inject them."
By: itv News.
Image: Fierce Pharma.
Review: FM.