THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A Malayali doctor, Ajikumar Kavidasan, was among the first 50 people to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine shot against Covid-19 at Croydon University Hospital in London on Tuesday.
Faced with a new of wave of Covid spread, the Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine is being given to all UK citizens free of cost and the initial priority is given to people who are above 80 years, frontline health workers looking after coronavirus patients, hospital staff, patients who have asthma, lung issues and diabetes.
Consultant chest physician and professor in pulmonary at at Croydon University Hospital, Dr Ajikumar comes under the high-risk category and the National Health Service (NHS) advised him to take the vaccine. After three weeks, Dr Ajikumar will be taking the next dose.
He told TNIE that there are slight side effects to the new vaccine, like flu-like symptoms and pain on the spot the 1.5ml vaccine was taken.
“Usually, pharma companies take more than five years to come up with a vaccine. But in the present scenario, people are dying in large numbers in the UK everyday. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the UK’s drug authority, gave the sanction to the British-German vaccine manufacturers to have it administered in the country. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US has also approved the vaccine for use. On Wednesday, the NHS gave orders for 40 million doses for 20 million people,” said 50 year old Dr Ajikumar.
It should be recalled that trials of the Covid vaccine developed by Serum Institute of India, Pune, in partnership with the University of Oxford and AstaZeneca are currently going on.
At the moment, the Oxford vaccine has only 70 per cent success rate, but Dr Ajikumar feels that in due course, the success rate can be enhanced to 90 per cent like the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
“Despite the concerns raised by my family, I decided to take the vaccine shot as I wanted to be a role model and educate people,” he said.
Alappuzha native, Dr Ajikumar passed out from TD Medical College. He lives in Croydon with wife Priji and their two children.