Hospitals in Burnley and Blackburn not on list of first 50 announced to start giving Covid-19 vaccine
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The list of sites was announced yesterday but the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT), which includes the Royal Blackburn and Burnley General hospitals, was not on the list.
Burnley, Blackburn and Pendle has recorded some of the highest rates of infection in the country since the start of the pandemic.
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Hide AdThe approved sites are ready to start administering the approved Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine from next week.
The list of sites was set out in a letter to trusts last month from Emily Lawson, NHS England's chief commercial officer, and Sue Harriman, chief operating officer of the Covid-19 vaccination deployment programme.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said hospitals were one of the "three modes of delivery" for the vaccination - alongside mass vaccination centres and community rollout via GPs and pharmacists.
Elderly people in care homes and their carers are top of the list to receive the jab after the UK became the first country in the world to approve a Covid vaccine.
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Hide AdThe UK has so far ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, enough to immunise 20 million people.
The Pfizer vaccine has been shown in studies to be 95% effective and works in all age groups.
Announcing its approval on Wednesday, the British regulator stressed the jab had been put through an "extremely thorough and scientifically rigorous review" before being given clinical approval.