University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center receives COVID-19 vaccines

MD Anderson Cancer Center gets Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

MD Anderson has received more than 4,000 COVID-19 vaccines, which will mostly go to healthcare workers.

HOUSTON - Shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine are arriving in Houston.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center says it received its allocation of the COVID-19 vaccine early Monday morning.

MD Anderson health care workers will be the first in Houston to get vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccines are delivered at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Photo credit: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center)

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“We are giving first access to those who are caring for our COVID positive or COVID suspected patients, and then also to those who are caring for our most immune-compromised patients,” said Dr. Welela Tereffe, the hospital's chief medical officer.

MD Anderson employees will have to sign up for the vaccine which will be administered by appointment at the Cancer Center over a 7 day period starting Wednesday. This will give employees time to become familiar with new information made available following emergency authorization.

“We are not mandating vaccination. We are using a voluntary program.”

COVID-19 vaccines are delivered at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Photo credit: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center)

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Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine shipped from a production facility in Michigan on Sunday morning. With no word on when the next shipment of vaccines will arrive, the hospital hopes to make the COVID-19 vaccine available to its patients next.

MD Anderson is one of four medical sites across Texas receiving vaccines on Monday.

Part of the reason why MD Anderson was able to receive the vaccine first was its ability to store it properly.

“It has to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius, which means that it either needs to be in an ultra-low freezer or that it needs to be kept in a thermal shipper.”

Houston. MD Anderson Cancer Center. The University of Texas. (Photo by Aurora Fierro/Cover/Getty Images)

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, 19 more Texas sites – including seven in the Houston-area – are scheduled to receive 75,075 doses on Tuesday.

While health care workers will get first access, doctors hope that those in the highest risk categories will get access to the vaccine around the first of the year.

“Part of this will be age-related. The other part then has to do with other risk factors," said Dr. Marc Boom, President and CEO of Houston Methodist Hospital. "So the same ones we’ve been talking about all along with COVID—people who have any sort of immuno-suppression, chronic kidney disease, cancers, heart disease.”

Twenty-seven hospitals in the Houston area are scheduled to receive this first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccine this week.

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