First person to receive vaccine in Northern Ireland is nurse from Co Down - ‘I feel privileged and honoured and a little bit emotional that we have got here – very, very grateful’

Joanna Sloan, 28, is sister in charge of Covid vaccination for the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland’s largest.

She received the jab at the Royal Victoria Hospital in West Belfast on Tuesday morning.

The nurse is from Dundrum in Co Down.

Ms Sloan is a former emergency department nurse and has been in her job for six years.

She is engaged but her wedding was postponed due to the pandemic.

Ms Sloan has a daughter aged five.

The nurse, from Dundrum in Co Down, said: “I feel privileged and honoured and a little bit emotional that we have got here – very, very grateful.”

She felt “apprehensive and nervous” beforehand.

As the vaccine was administered, she said she was thinking: “At last – we are here.”

Ms Sloan added: “Through everything that healthcare workers (went through), either in hospital or (the) community – people themselves losing family members, us losing colleagues – it felt like it was a huge moment and that this was and could possibly be the final hurdle in the fight against Covid.”

Afterwards, she said of the jab: “It did not feel any different than any other immunisation that I have had, I did not feel any pain.”

She said it had been stressful and hard work preparing for the moment.

“We worked tirelessly to make sure that people are safe.”

Northern Ireland’s chief medical officer, Dr Michael McBride, said it was a remarkable day.

“We can begin to look to the future with a degree of optimism, with this vaccine and other vaccines and more effective treatments,” he said.

“Hopefully in the future Covid-19 will become a more manageable disease and we will begin the pathway to a more normal life.”

Dr McBride added that he did not think this day would come so soon, 10 months after Covid-19 was discovered, as opposed to the more normal 10 years taken to develop vaccines.

He recalled the sacrifices and harm caused by the virus as well as the number of lives lost, and warned there will be more challenging months ahead.

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.”

The vaccine will be delivered at seven sites across Northern Ireland 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 Londonderry.

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.”

The first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab arrived in Northern Ireland last week after it was approved by UK regulators.

It has an efficacy rate of as high as 95%.

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.”

READ - First coronavirus vaccinations starting to roll out in Northern Ireland - but first person in world to be vaccinated in UK is Margaret Keenen, 90, from Enniskillen

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