“A Window of Hope”: Europe Undertakes COVID-19 Vaccination

By Anita komuves, Benoit Van Overstraeten, Isla Binnie

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BUDAPEST / PARIS / MADRID, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Hungary was ahead of the rest of the European Union countries by beginning to vaccinate its population against COVID-19 on Saturday, a day before its launch in other countries, such as France. , Germany and Spain, as the pandemic spreads across the continent.

Mass vaccination across the European Union, home to nearly 450 million people, can be a crucial step in ending a pandemic that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide, crippled economies and it has destroyed businesses and jobs.

Hungary administered the vaccine, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, to front-line workers in hospitals in the capital Budapest after receiving their first shipment of doses, enough to inoculate 4,875 people.

The first worker to receive the vaccine was Adrienne Kertesz, a doctor at the Del-Pest Central Hospital.

Hungary has registered 315,362 COVID-19 cases with 8,951 deaths. More than 6,000 people are still hospitalized with COVID-19, putting the central European country’s care system to the test.

“We are very happy that the vaccine is here,” said Zsuzsa and Antal Takacs, a 68- and 75-year-old couple, as they played table tennis in a park in Budapest.

“We will get vaccinated because our daughter had a baby in France last month and we want to go see them. We don’t dare to travel before getting vaccinated, ”Zsuzsa said.

The start-up in Hungary occurred a day before the scheduled date for the launch of vaccines among the population in countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Spain, starting with health workers.

Distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which was first introduced in the UK this month, presents big challenges. The vaccine uses a new genetic mRNA technology, which implies the need for storage at ultra-low temperatures, around -80 degrees Celsius.

NEW VARIANT IN FRANCE AND SPAIN

France, which received its first shipment of the two-dose vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech on Saturday, will begin administering it on Sunday in the Paris metropolitan area and in the Burgundy-France-Cote d’Azur region.

“We have 19,500 doses in total, which is equivalent to 3,900 vials. These doses will be stored in our -80 degrees Celsius freezer and then distributed to different nursing homes and hospitals, ”said Franck Huet, head of pharmaceuticals for the Paris public hospital system.

The French government expects to vaccinate around a million people in nursing homes during January and February, and then another 14-15 million in the general population between March and June.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved by the French medical regulator on Thursday.

France recorded more than 20,000 new COVID-19 infections on Friday for the second day in a row, a figure not seen since November 20. The average of daily new cases for the last seven days, which reduces the distortions of the daily reports, is at 14,969, the highest level in a month.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in France is now 2,547,771, the fifth highest in the world, while the number of deaths from COVID-19 is 62,427, the seventh highest.

The Health Ministry said on Friday that a man just arrived from London has tested positive for a new variant of the virus that has been spreading rapidly in southern England and is believed to be more infectious.

In Spain, Madrid health authorities said Saturday they had confirmed four cases of the new variant of the virus, as the country received its first deliveries of the vaccine.

The boxes arrived by truck at a warehouse near Madrid at dawn. Employees at Spain’s drug agency unpacked the vaccine, which is stored on dry ice, with gloved hands.

“At 07:29 h. This Saturday the first vaccines against # COVID19 arrived at the Guadalajara warehouse. As planned, vaccination will begin tomorrow in Spain, in coordination with the rest of Europe. It is the beginning of the end of the pandemic, ”Health Minister Salvador Illa wrote on Twitter.

The doses will be carried by air to the Spanish islands and the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and by road to other regions of the country, where a total of some 50,000 people have died from the disease.

“A WINDOW OF HOPE HAS BEEN OPENED”

Germany, meanwhile, said trucks are on the way to bring the vaccine to nursing homes, which are the first in line to receive the vaccine on Sunday.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country increased by 14,455, to 1,627,103, according to data released Saturday by the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases. In all, more than 29,000 people have died.

The government plans to distribute more than 1.3 million doses of vaccines to local health authorities before the end of the year and about 700,000 a week starting in January.

“There may be some setbacks at one point or another at the beginning, but it is quite normal when you start such a logistically complex process,” said Health Minister Jensen Spahn.

In Portugal, a truck escorted by the police left the first batch of anti-COVID-19 vaccines in a warehouse in the central region of the country. From there, the nearly 10,000 injections will be delivered to five large hospitals.

“It is a historic milestone for all of us, an important day after such a difficult year,” Health Minister Marta Temido told reporters outside the warehouse.

“A window of hope has opened, without forgetting that a very difficult fight awaits us.”