Dialysis patient ‘proud’ to be first for vaccine

An 82-year-old retired maintenance manager has become the first person in the world to receive the Oxford University and Astrazeneca vaccine outside clinical trials.

Dialysis patient Brian Pinker received the jab at 7.30am yesterday from nurse Sam Foster at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Fo u n d a t i o n Tr u s t ’ s Churchill Hospital.

Mr Pinker, who has been having dialysis for kidney disease at the hospital for a number of years, was pleased to be getting protection against coronavirus.

He said the jab will give him peace of mind during ongoing treatment, and he is now looking forward to celebrating his 48 th wedding anniversary in February.

“I am so pleased to be getting the Covid vaccine today and really proud that it is one that was invented in Oxford,” Mr Pinker said.

“The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year.”

Music teacher and father-of-three Trevor Cowlett, 88, and Professor Andrew Pollard, a paediatrician working at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust who also pioneered the Oxford jab, were also among the first to be vaccinated.

Chief nurse Ms Foster said: “It was a real privilege to be able to deliver the first Oxford vaccine at the Churchill Hospital here in Oxford, just a few hundred metres from where it was developed.”

Mr Pinker gets his jab.