The UK has bought 17 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, and phase three results suggest that it has 100% efficacy against severe cases
A 24-year-old carer from Wales has become the first person in all of the UK to receive a dose of the Moderna vaccine as it has become the latest jab to be used as part the country’s coronavirus vaccination programme.
Elle Taylor, from Ammanford in Wales, who acts as an unpaid carer for her 82-year-old grandmother, has received the vaccine this morning.
“I’m very excited and very happy,” she said. “I’m an unpaid carer for my grandmother so it is very important to me that I get it, so I can care for her properly and safely.
“My grandmother has had her first dose and she is going for her second dose on Saturday.”
This comes after 1.1 million people in private households in the UK have reported having long COVID, latest estimates show. The data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) defined the condition as symptoms that lasted more than four weeks and are self-reported, rather than clinically diagnosed.
Miss Taylor, who works at a further education college in Llanelli, received the Moderna jab from staff nurse Laura French at West Wales General Hospital in Carmathen.
She said she only found out on Tuesday evening that she was to be the first Briton to receive the Moderna jab in the UK.
First doses of the Moderna jab are being administered at West Wales General Hospital on Wednesday, with a total of 5,000 doses having been distributed to vaccination centres across Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire.
Supplies of the Moderna vaccine arrived in Wales on Tuesday.
Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is the third to have been approved for use in the UK, and is being rolled out alongside the vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford University-AstraZeneca.
The UK has purchased 17 million doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine, which is enough for 8.5 million people, with phase three results suggesting that the vaccine has 100% efficacy against the severe cases of COVID-19.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged people to “please get your jab as soon as you are contacted”.
This comes after the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is safe and 100% effective in children as young as 12, its manufacturers have said. The two firms have carried out vaccine trials in the US on 12 to 15-year-olds, which they say were successful.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “I’m delighted we can start the UK rollout of the Moderna vaccine in west Wales today.
“The UK government has secured vaccines on behalf of the entire nation and the vaccination programme has shown our country working together at its best.
“Three out of every five people across the whole United Kingdom have received at least one dose, and today we start with the third approved vaccine. Wherever you live, when you get the call, get the jab.”
