LONDON: Nearly 140,000 people in the United Kingdom have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the first week of roll-out of the shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the minister in charge of deployment of the vaccine said on Wednesday.

"A really good start to the vaccination program. It's been 7 days and we have done: England: 108,000, Wales: 7,897, Northern Ireland: 4,000, Scotland: 18,000. U.K Total 137,897," Nadhim Zahawi said in a tweet.

"That number will increase as we have operationalised hundreds of PCN (primary care networks)," he said.