World's first man to get COVID-19 vaccine dies of unrelated illness in UK

William Shakespeare hit global headlines on December 8 last year when he became the first man to have the jab to fight against the coronavirus at the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire.

PTI

May 26, 2021 / 13:15 IST

Heartbreak and despair arrived quickly. Nightmarish scenes we had witnessed in China and Italy reached America, and the nation snapped to attention. Nursing homes near Seattle became the sites of the first deadly U.S. outbreak. We watched the elderly and frail suffer alone: An octogenarian with COVID-19, stretched out in a hospital bed, blowing her family a kiss through a window. (Image: AP)

An 81-year-old pensioner in the UK who made history when he became the first man in the world to have the COVID-19 vaccination has died of an unrelated illness, the British media reported on Tuesday.

William Shakespeare hit global headlines on December 8 last year when he became the first man to have the jab to fight against the coronavirus at the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire.

Shakespeare received his first Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the same hospital shortly after 91-year-old Margaret Keenan, who became the world's first person to get the jab.

Coventry councillor Jayne Innes, a friend of Shakespeare, said he had died on Thursday (May 20) and added the "best tribute to Bill is to have the jab".

Bill, as he was fondly known, passed away after a period of illness at the same hospital where he famously received his vaccine, CoventryLive reported.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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