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'We have a new weapon': Europe rolls out vaccines in bid to slay COVID-19
The region of 450 million people is trying to catch up with the United States and Britain, which have already started vaccinations using the Pfizer shot.
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Edith Kwoizalla, 101 years old, receives the first vaccination against the novel coronavirus COVID-19 by Pfizer and BioNTech from Doctor Bernhard Ellendt (R) in a senior care facility in Halberstadt (Seniorenzentrum Krueger), central northern Germany, on December 26, 2020. - The European Union began a vaccine rollout, even as countries in the bloc were forced back into lockdown by a new strain of the virus, believed to be more infectious, that continues to spread from Britain. The pandemic has claimed more than 1.7 million lives and is still running rampant in much of the world, but the recent launching of innoculation campaigns has boosted hopes that 2021 could bring a respite. (AFP/Matthias Bein / dpa )
E
urope launched a mass COVID-19 vaccination drive on Sunday with pensioners and medics lining up to get the first shots to see off a pandemic that has crippled economies and claimed more than 1.7 million lives worldwide.
"Thank God," 96-year-old Araceli Hidalgo said as she became the first person in Spain to have a vaccine at her care home in Guadalajara, near the capital Madrid.
"Let's see if we can make this virus go away."
In Italy, the first country in Europe to record significant numbers of infections, 29-year-old nurse Claudia Alivernini was one of three medical staff at the head of the queue for the shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
"It is the beginning of the end ... it was an exciting, historic moment," she said at Rome's Spallanzani hospital.
The region of 450 million people is trying to catch up with the United States and Britain, which have already started vaccinations using the Pfizer shot.
The European Union is due to receive 12.5 million doses by the end of the year, enough to vaccinate 6.25 million people based on the two-dose regimen. The companies are scrambling to meet global demand and aim to make 1.3 billion shots next year.
The bloc has secured contracts with a range of drugmakers besides Pfizer, including Moderna and AstraZeneca , for a total of more than two billion vaccine doses and has set a goal for all adults to be inoculated during 2021.
With surveys pointing to high levels of hesitancy towards the vaccine in countries from France to Poland, leaders of the 27-country European Union are promoting it as the best chance of getting back to something like normal life next year.
"We have a new weapon against the virus: the vaccine. We must stand firm, once more," tweeted French President Emmanuel Macron, who tested positive for the coronavirus this month and left quarantine on Christmas Eve.
"Completely painless," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos said after getting his vaccination in a hospital in Athens.
The distribution of the shot presents tough challenges as the vaccine uses new mRNA technology and must be stored at ultra-low temperatures of 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 the shipment to the 25 German distribution centers and that the federal states and local authorities were responsible for the shipment to the vaccination centers and the mobile vaccination teams.
"This is where the variations in temperature occurred. We are in contact with many authorities to provide advice, however it is up to them how to proceed", a spokeswoman said.
The Pfizer shots being 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 at Antarctic winter temperatures, or for five days at 2C to 8C, a type of refrigeration commonly available at hospitals.
In Italy, temporary solar-powered healthcare pavilions designed to look like five-petaled primrose flowers - a symbol of spring - sprouted in town squares as the vaccination drive kicked off.
Portugal has been establishing separate cold storage units for its Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores.
At the Santa Maria hospital in Portugal's capital Lisbon, Pedro Pires waited for a shot with other nurses at the end of an overnight shift.
"It has been tiring ... a lot of work," he told Reuters.
Branka Anicic, an 81-year-old resident of a care home in Zagreb, became the first person to get a shot in Croatia. "I'm happy I will now be able to see my great-grandchildren," she said.
"It will change the lives of everyone in the world," said an elderly passerby in Paris who gave her name as Anaik.
German pilot Samy Kramer celebrated the vaccination campaign by tracing out a giant syringe in the sky. He flew 200 km (125 miles), following a syringe-shaped route that showed up on internet site flightradar24.
The vaccination drive is all the more urgent because of the concern around new variants of the virus linked to a rapid expansion of cases in Britain and South Africa.
