WARSAW, Poland (AP) – Hungarian doctors and healthcare professionals started being vaccinated on Saturday with one of the first shipments of the continent’s Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, disrupting the European Union’s plans for a coordinated implementation of the first vaccines in the 27 block countries on Sunday.
The first shipments of the vaccine reached hospitals across the EU in super-cold containers on Friday night and early Saturday, after being shipped from a manufacturing center in Belgium before Christmas.
It was not clear why the Hungarian authorities started vaccinating the day before. Slovakian authorities have also announced that they plan to start administering their first doses on Saturday night.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the launch of the vaccine, calling it “a touching moment of unity”.
“Today we are starting to turn the page in a difficult year. The COVID-19 vaccine has been distributed in all EU countries. Vaccination will start tomorrow across the EU, ”she said.
The launch marks a moment of hope for a region that includes some of the world’s first and most affected virus hotspots – Italy and Spain – and others like the Czech Republic, which were spared at first just to see their health systems up close of their breaking point in the fall.
In all, the 27 EU nations saw at least 16 million coronavirus infections and more than 336,000 deaths. The launch of the vaccine will help the bloc to project a sense of unity on a complex rescue mission after facing a year of difficulties in negotiating a post-Brexit trade agreement with Britain. It also brings a sigh of relief to EU politicians who were frustrated after Britain, Canada and the United States started their vaccination programs earlier this month.
“Here is the good news for Christmas,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn told a news conference on Saturday. “This vaccine is the key to ending this pandemic.”
“It’s the key to getting our lives back,” said Spahn.
First shipments, however, are limited to just under 10,000 doses in most countries, with mass vaccination programs scheduled to start in January only. Each country is deciding for itself who will be the first to shoot – but everyone is putting the most vulnerable first.
In Hungary, the first shipment of 9,750 doses – enough to vaccinate 4,875 people, since two doses are needed per person – arrived by truck on Saturday morning and were taken to Central South Pest Hospital in Budapest. The government said that four other hospitals, two in Budapest and two others in the eastern cities of Debrecen and Nyíregyháza, will also receive vaccines from the initial shipment.
French officials said they would prioritize the elderly, based on the deadly impact of the virus on the elderly in previous virus outbreaks in France. The French medical security agency will monitor any potential problems.
Germany, where the pandemic has claimed more than 30,000 lives, will start with people over 80 and people who care for vulnerable groups.
Spanish authorities said the first batch of vaccine to arrive in the country arrived in the city of Guadalajara – where the first vaccines will be administered on Sunday morning in a nursing home.
In Italy, which has the worst number of virus deaths in Europe, with more than 71,000 people, a nurse in Rome at Spallanzani Hospital, the capital’s main infectious disease center, will be the first in the country to receive the vaccine, followed by other health personnel.
In Poland, the first two people to be vaccinated on Sunday will be a nurse and a doctor at the Ministry of the Interior hospital in Warsaw, the main hospital for coronaviruses in the capital, followed by medical staff at dozens of other hospitals.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki considered the patriotic duty of Poles to be vaccinated – a message addressed to a society where there is a high degree of vaccination hesitation, the result of a general distrust of the authorities.
In Bulgaria, where vaccination hesitation is also high, the first person to get the injection will be Health Minister Kostadin Angelov, who has promised an aggressive campaign to promote the benefits of vaccines.
In Croatia, where the first batch of 9,750 vaccines arrived on Saturday morning, a nursing home resident in Zagreb, the capital, will be the first to receive the vaccine on Sunday morning, according to state TV HRT. The authorities also planned to involve celebrities and other public figures in a pro-vaccination campaign.
“We have been waiting for this for a year,” said Romanian Prime Minister Florin Catu, on Saturday, after the first batch of vaccine arrived at a local military depot.
The vaccinations start as the first cases of a new variant of the virus that has spread in the UK, have now been detected in France and Spain. The new variant, which British officials said was much easier to convey, has caused European countries, the United States and China to place new restrictions on travel by people in the UK.
A Frenchman living in England arrived in France on December 19 and tested positive for the new variant on Friday, the French public health agency said. He has no symptoms and is isolating himself in his home in the center of Tours.
Meanwhile, health officials in the Madrid region said they had confirmed the UK variant in four people, all in good health. Regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero said the new strain had arrived when an infected person flew to Madrid airport.
German pharmaceutical company BioNTech is confident that your coronavirus vaccine works against the new UK variant, but further studies are needed to be absolutely sure.
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Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels, David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, Angela Charlton in Paris, Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, Frances D’Emilio in Rome, Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia and Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria contributed to this report.