By Isla Binnie and Giselda Vagnoni
MADRID / ROME (Reuters) – Europe launched a mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19 on Sunday, with retirees and doctors lining up to get the first vaccines to end a pandemic that has affected economies and mowed more than 1.7 million lives worldwide.
“Thank God,” said Araceli Hidalgo, 96, as she became the first person in Spain to receive a vaccine at her nursing home in Guadalajara, near the capital Madrid.
“Let’s see if we can get this virus to go away.”
In Italy, the first country in Europe to register a significant number of infections, nurse Claudia Alivernini, 29, was one of three medical teams at the head of the line for the injection developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
“It is the beginning of the end … it was an emotional and historic moment,” she said at Rome’s Spallanzani hospital.
The region of 450 million people is trying to reach the United States and Britain, which have already started vaccinating with the Pfizer vaccine.
The European Union should receive 12.5 million doses by the end of the year, enough to vaccinate 6.25 million people based on the two-dose schedule. The companies are struggling to meet global demand and intend to take 1.3 billion photos next year.
The bloc has signed contracts with a number of drug manufacturers in addition to Pfizer, including Moderna and AstraZeneca, for a total of more than two billion doses of vaccines and has set a target for all adults to be inoculated during 2021.
With surveys pointing to high levels of hesitation about the vaccine in countries from France to Poland, the leaders of the 27 countries in the European Union are promoting it as the best chance of returning to something like normal life next year.
“We have a new weapon against the virus: the vaccine. We need to stay strong once again,” tweeted French President Emmanuel Macron, who tested positive for the coronavirus this month and came out of quarantine on Christmas Eve.
But Ireneusz Sikorski, 41, leaving the church in the Polish capital of Warsaw, was skeptical.
“I don’t think there is a vaccine in history that has been tested so quickly,” he said. “I’m not saying that vaccination shouldn’t happen. But I’m not going to test an unchecked vaccine on my children or myself.”
REFRIGERATION CONCERNS
The delivery of the injection presents difficult challenges, as the vaccine uses a new mRNA technology and must be stored at about -70 degrees Celsius (-112 ° F).
In Germany, the campaign faced delays in several cities after a temperature tracker showed that about 1,000 shots may not have been kept cold enough during transit.
BioNtech said it was responsible for shipping to the 25 German distribution centers and that federal states and local authorities are responsible for shipping to vaccination centers and mobile vaccination teams.
“This is where temperature changes occur. We are in contact with various authorities to advise, but it is up to them how to proceed, ”said a spokeswoman.
Officials in the Upper Franconian region of Bavaria, an area that was affected, said later that BioNTech had released the vaccines.
“BioNTech confirmed the quality of the vaccines,” said a spokeswoman. “The vaccination program can begin (in our region)”.
Pfizer shots used in Europe were shipped from its factory in Puurs, Belgium, in specially designed containers filled with dry ice. They can be stored for up to six months in Antarctic winter temperatures or for five days between 2C and 8C, a type of refrigeration commonly available in hospitals.
In Italy, solar-powered health pavilions designed to look like five-petal evening primrose flowers – a symbol of spring – sprouted in the city squares when the vaccination campaign began.
Portugal has been establishing separate refrigeration units for the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores.
German pilot Samy Kramer celebrated the vaccination campaign by tracing a giant syringe in the sky. He flew 200 km (125 miles), following a syringe-shaped route that appeared on the website flightradar24.
‘FIRST MAN ON THE MOON’
The vaccination campaign is all the more urgent because of concerns over new variants of the virus linked to a rapid expansion of cases in Britain and South Africa.
“We know that the pandemic will not disappear as of today, but the vaccine is the beginning of victory over the pandemic, the vaccine is a ‘game changer’,” said Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
Cases of the United Kingdom variant have been detected in Australia, Hong Kong and Europe, mainly recently in Sweden, France, Norway and the island of Madeira, in Portugal. So far, scientists say there is no evidence to suggest that the vaccines developed will be less effective against the new variants.
While Europe has some of the best-resourced health systems in the world, the scale of the effort means that some countries are calling on retired doctors to help, while others have relaxed the rules on who can give the injections.
In addition to hospitals and nursing homes, sports halls and convention centers left empty by blocking restrictions will become venues for mass vaccinations.
Vaccination has also started in Norway, which is not a member of the EU bloc.
“I feel like a historical figure … almost like the first man on the moon,” said a resident of a nursing home Svein Andersen, 67, when receiving the country’s first shot in the capital, Oslo.
After European governments were criticized for not working together to combat the spread of the virus in early 2020, the objective this time is to ensure that there is equal access throughout the region.
But even so, Hungary accelerated on Saturday at the official launch by administering shots to frontline staff at hospitals in the capital Budapest. The Netherlands said it would not start vaccinating until 8 January.
Slovakia also started some vaccinations with health workers on Saturday, and in Germany, a small number of people in a nursing home were also vaccinated the day before.
(Additional reporting by Catarina Demony in Lisbon, Arno Schuetze in Frankfurt, Silke Koltrowitz in Vienna, Robert Muller in Prague, Tsvetelia Tsolova in Sofia, Igor Ilic in Zagreb, Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo, Michele Kambas in Athens and Benoit Van Overstraeten in Paris; Writing by Mark John and Andrew Heavens; Editing by David Clarke, Nick Macfie and Daniel Wallis)