Warsaw, Poland (AP) – The first shipments of coronavirus vaccines have reached the entire European Union as authorities prepare to administer the first shots to the most vulnerable people in a coordinated effort on Sunday.
The vaccines developed by BioNTech and Pfizer arrived by truck in warehouses across the continent on Friday and early Saturday after being shipped from a manufacturing center in Belgium before Christmas.
The launch marks a moment of hope for a region that includes some of the points most affected by the first viruses and those most affected by the world, including Italy and Spain, and others, such as the Czech Republic, that saved the worst. at first just to see your health care systems close to breaking points in the fall.
In total, the 27 EU member states have seen at least 16 million cases of coronavirus and more than 336,000 deaths.
“It’s here, the good news of Christmas,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said at a news conference on Saturday. “At the moment, trucks are up and running throughout Europe, in Germany and its regions, to administer the first vaccine. More deliveries will follow after tomorrow. This vaccine is the key to ending this pandemic. “
“It’s the key to getting our lives back,” Spahn said.
The deployment is the result of the coordination of the 27 member states, which helps the bloc also project a sense of unity in a mission that saves logistical complexity after the difficulties of negotiating a post-Brexit trade agreement. with Britain.
Early doses, however, are limited to just under 10,000 doses in most countries, and mass vaccination programs are expected to begin only in January.
Each country decides on its own who will get the first shots, but they are all putting the most vulnerable first.
French authorities said they will give priority to the elderly, given the high impact on older populations in previous virus rises in France. The French medical safety agency will monitor possible problems.
Germany, where the pandemic has cost more than 30,000 lives, will start with people over 80 and people dealing with vulnerable groups.
Spanish authorities said early Saturday that the first batch of coronavirus vaccine to arrive in the country had arrived in the central city of Guadalajara, where the first shots will be administered on Sunday morning at a nursing home.
A nurse at Rome’s Spallanzani Hospital, the main infectious disease plant in the Italian capital, should be the first in the country to receive the vaccine, followed by other medical staff.
In Poland, the first two people to be vaccinated on Sunday will be a nurse and a doctor from Warsaw’s Interior Ministry hospital, the capital’s main coronavirus hospital, followed by medical staff from dozens of other hospitals.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki recently described the patriotic duty of Poles to be vaccinated, a message addressed to a society where there is a high degree of vaccination existence that arises from the general distrust of the authorities.
In Bulgaria, where there are also suspicions, the first person to get the shot will be Health Minister Kostadin Angelov, who has promised an aggressive campaign to promote the benefits of the shots.
In Croatia, where the first batch of 9,750 vaccines arrived in the early hours of Saturday, a nursing home residing in Zagreb, the capital, will be the first to receive the vaccine on Sunday morning, according to state HRT TV.
HRT TV also reported that authorities would launch a pro-vaccination campaign that will include celebrities and other public figures taking the vaccine on camera.
“We have been waiting for this for a year now,” Romanian Prime Minister Florin Catu said on Saturday after the first batch of vaccine arrived at a military warehouse.
Vaccinations are beginning as the first cases of a new variant of the virus that has spread to the UK in France and Spain have now been detected. The new variant has caused several European countries to restrict traffic with Britain.
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 in a statement. He has no symptoms and is isolated at home in the central city of Tours.
Meanwhile, health authorities in the Madrid region said they had confirmed the 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.
The German pharmaceutical company BioNTech trusts that their coronavirus vaccine works against the new UK variant, but further studies are needed to be completely safe.
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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. to this report.