UK trains vaccine volunteers to achieve PM Boris Johnson’s goal of 15 million inoculations by Feb

The United Kingdom is training volunteers to administer coronavirus vaccines to help achieve Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s target of vaccinating 15 million of those most at risk from the virus by mid-February, AFP reported. As many as 30,000 volunteers, from all walks of life, are being recruited by St John Ambulance to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines currently authorised for general use in UK vaccination centres.

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The volunteers include those with no medical qualifications.

To qualify for the volunteer programme, recruits must be over the age of 18 with secondary school education and pass a criminal background check.

Apart from administering vaccine jabs, they’re also trained how to boost confidence in those about to receive their vaccines. They are also instructed how to wash their hands thoroughly, safely remove their personal protective equipment and give first aid.

“One of the associated risks, and a very small associated risk with vaccination, is anaphylaxis, having a severe allergic reaction,” Carl Fazackerley, a St John Ambulance instructor told AFP.

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“The screening will have been done by NHS colleagues before,” he added, referring to Britain’s state-run National Health Service. “So this shouldn’t happen, but it’s about being ready to deal with it if it does.”

“Volunteers are absolutely essential to this vaccination programme because what they bring is scale and capacity,” Fazackerley explained.

“The NHS is already under pressure from COVID and to ask the NHS on its own this vaccination would be an impossible task,” he added.

The UK, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, was the first Western country to launch a massive vaccination campaign in early December. More than 8.9 million people have already received a first dose of the vaccine.

Johnson’s government has set itself the goal of administering 15 million doses of the jab to all individuals over 70 years of age and caregivers by mid-February.

The country has recorded over 3.8 million virus cases and 106,367 deaths, as per Johns Hopkins University’s tally.