Vaccine 'a game-changer' as nurse from Co Down receives first Covid jab in the North
Sister Joanna Sloan (left) becomes the first person in Northern Ireland to receive the first of two Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine jabs, at the Royal Victoria Hospital, in Belfast. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA Wire
The first person to receive the vaccine in Northern Ireland was a 28-year-old nurse from Dundrum in Co Down.
Joanna Sloan is a sister in charge of Covid vaccination for the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland’s largest.
She is a former emergency department nurse and has been in her occupation for six years.
She is engaged but her wedding was postponed due to the pandemic. She has a daughter aged five.
Ms Sloan is one of an 800-plus team of vaccinators that will be involved in the subsequent rollout programme.
Stormont Health Minister Robin Swann said: “Let us not underestimate the importance of today and what we are seeing with the start of our vaccination programme.”
He told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme: “It is a game-changer, it is a big day.
“It is the day we have long been waiting for.”
He said it should be greeted with optimism but tempered with caution. “This is the start of a long road to recovery but we are on the first step.”
Healthcare workers across the region will be able to get the vaccine through the remainder of December at seven centres spread across the region, including the Ulster Hospital’s new Emergency Department near Belfast, the Seven Towers Leisure Centre in Ballymena in Co Antrim, Antrim Forum leisure centre and the Foyle Arena in Derry.
Those who will deliver the vaccine to the wider population are the first to receive it.
Residents in care homes and their staff are due to be inoculated before Christmas.
Mr Swann added: “This will make such a difference to that generation, those people with clinical vulnerabilities who have been living in fear of this virus.
“This vaccine gives hope, this vaccine gives the opportunity of a return to normal sooner than we would ever have thought.”
Stocks of coronavirus vaccine arrived in Northern Ireland on Friday.
There are 25,000 doses in the initial batch of the vaccine.
The stocks have been taken to a central storage facility operated by a private company. The location is not being disclosed.
Two of the facilities are located on hospital grounds – at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald and Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital – and the rest in leisure centres.
The centres will operate 12 hours a day and seven days a week.
Meanwhile, a 90-year-old grandmother originally from Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh became the first person in the world to have the Pfizer jab outside trial conditions.
Margaret Keenan has lived in Coventry for more than 60 years.
She said: “Hopefully it’ll help other people come along and do what I did, and try and do the best to get rid of this terrible thing.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
