Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine expands to General Practice services in UK

London: Supplies of the Oxford University vaccine produced by AstraZeneca began expanding to General Practice (GP) led services in the UK from Thursday to make it easier to protect care home residents and other vulnerable people against COVID-19, the British government said.

As part of a phased rollout since the jabs received regulatory approval last month, the vaccine has been trialled at selected hospitals in the country for surveillance purposes before being sent out to hundreds of community-based local vaccination services.

The biggest vaccination programme in NHS (National Health Service) history is already off to a strong start with around 1 million people already vaccinated against Coronavirus - this is a credit to our exceptional NHS staff, said Dr Nikki Kanani, GP and NHS medical director for primary care.

GPs, nurses, pharmacists and countless other staff and volunteers have been working around the clock to be able to launch almost 200 more sites this week. Combined with the arrival of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, we will now be able to protect many more vulnerable people against the virus and faster, she said.

It comes as the UK remains under a strict stay-at-home lockdown as the infection rates from a new variant of Coronavirus surged further, with 62,322 new cases and 1,041 deaths recorded on Wednesday.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it will be these vaccines that provide the "means of escape" from lockdown and has pledged daily vaccination updates starting next Monday.

Unlike the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be approved for use in the UK last year, the Oxford vaccine does not need to be stored at ultra-low temperatures and is therefore much easier to move, making it easier to use in care homes and to vaccinate the housebound.

NHS England said that hundreds of new sites are opening at hospitals and in the community this week in the new phase of the vaccination programme. This is on top of the 700 which were already open and vaccinating, with seven vaccination centres among many more sites coming online next week, along with more hospitals, GP-led services and a number of pilot pharmacy vaccine services.

Every part of the government and the NHS are working around the clock to rapidly scale up our COVID-19 vaccination programme so we can protect those most at risk from this awful disease as quickly as possible, said UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock.