Europe finally starts vaccinating… three weeks after Britain

Almost three weeks after the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to offer the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in a mass inoculation programme, Europe has finally started to roll out doses of the drug.

The first shipments of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have been despatched from a manufacturing centre in Belgium, allowing most health authorities to begin delivering jabs to the most vulnerable across the continent from today. 

But Hungary, Slovakia and Germany stole a march on their EU neighbours when they began vaccinating care workers and people in homes for the elderly yesterday, a day before leaders had planned to start a co-ordinated continental roll-out. 

GERMANY: Gertrud Haase, 101, was vaccinated against the coronavirus by doctor Fatmir Dalladaku in Berlin, Germany. Germany, Hungary and Slovakia began vaccinating the vulnerable on Saturday, a day earlier than the planned European roll-out

SLOVAKIA: EU countries have began vaccinations this weekend, almost three weeks after the first Pfizer-BioNTech jab was administered in the UK. Pictured: Medical staff administered the vaccine to colleagues in Nitra, western Solvakia

HUNGARY: Adrienne Kertesz, a doctor at Del-Pest Central Hospital, became the first person to receive the vaccine in Hungary

‘Every day that we wait is one day too many,’ said Tobias Krueger, operator of the nursing home in Halberstadt in the Harz hill range. 

The first person there to be immunised with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 101-year-old Edith Kwoizalla, the dpa news agency reported.

Krueger said 40 of the home’s 59 residents wanted the immunisation shot along with 10 of around 40 workers.  

He was among those immunised but added, ‘I also understand the concerns.’

SWEDEN: Nursing home resident Gun-Britt Johnsson became the first person to receive the vaccine in Sweden on Sunday

POLAND: A Polish health care worker gave a confident thumbs up as she received her coronavirus vaccine 

Mass vaccination across the European Union, home to almost 450 million people, would be a crucial step towards ending a pandemic that has killed more than 1.7 million around the world, crippled economies and destroyed businesses and jobs.

The roll-out gives hope to some of the world’s worst-hit countries. At least 16 million cases of coronavirus have been reported across the EU, with more than 360,000 deaths. 

It comes as cases of the new variant of coronavirus first detected in the UK have been registered in France and Spain. 

Hungary administered the vaccine, jointly developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, to frontline workers at hospitals in Budapest, the capital, after receiving its first shipment of enough doses to inoculate 4,875 people. The first worker to receive the shot was Adrienne Kertesz, a doctor at Del-Pest Central Hospital.  

SPAIN: Police escorted officials taking a box of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine into Los Olmos nursing home for the elderly in Guadalajara on Sunday. The home will be the first location in Spain to administer the vaccine

CZECH REPUBLIC: World War II veteran Emilie Repikova sat next to Prime Minister Andrej Babis as she received her vaccination at Military University Hospital in Prague, Czech Republic

CYPRUS: A man received the vaccine at a nursing home in Nicosia, Cyprus on Sunday. Cyprus has ordered around 300million doses of the vaccine from various companies

On Sunday morning, other countries were quick to catch up. In Sweden, Gun-Britt Johnsson became the first person to receive the vaccine, while seated next to a Christmas tree in the nursing home where she lives. 

Poland also began vaccinations in the central hospital of the Ministry of Interior and Administration in Warsaw. 

Countries including France, Austria, Portugal and Spain are also due to begin mass vaccinations, starting with health workers, on Sunday.

With at least 600,000 Britons already inoculated against Covid-19 since Margaret Keenan was given the jab on December 8, Europe’s vulnerable groups have had to wait for experts at the European Medicines Agency to give formal approval. 

The European vaccination effort had been scheduled to start at a care home for the elderly in the Spanish city of Guadalajara, north-east of Madrid, but Hungary, Slovakia and Germany began a day earlier