(Adds quotes from Macron, Greece, Norway, detail and background
on new variants, German glitches)
* Goal is to offer vaccine to all adults through 2021
* EU has secured contracts for 2 billion-plus doses
* Frontline workers and elderly among those prioritised
* 'Thank God,' says first recipient in Spain, 96
By Isla Binnie and Giselda Vagnoni
MADRID/ROME, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Europe 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 both already started
vaccinations using the Pfizer/BioNTech shot.
The EU is due to receive 12.5 million doses of the shot 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.
Europe 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.
While Europe has some of the best-resourced healthcare
systems in the world, the sheer scale of the effort means some
countries are calling on retired medics to help while others
have loosened rules for who is allowed to give the injections.
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.
SOLAR-POWERED PAVILIONS
After European governments were criticised for failing to
work together to counter the spread of the virus in early 2020,
the goal this time is to ensure that there is equal access to
the vaccines across the region.
But even then, Hungary on Saturday jumped the gun on the
official roll-out by administering shots to frontline workers at
hospitals in the capital Budapest.
Slovakia also went ahead with some inoculations of
healthcare staff on Saturday and in Germany, a small number of
people at a care home were inoculated a day early too.
"We don't want to waste that one day that the vaccine loses
shelf life," Karsten Fischer, from the pandemic staff of the
Harz district in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, told local
broadcaster MDR.
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, several vaccination centres in Northern Bavaria
held off from inoculating people after uncertainty arose on
whether the cold chain had been maintained.
"When reading the temperature loggers that were enclosed in
the cool boxes, doubts arose about the compliance with the cold
chain requirements", the vaccination centres of Coburg,
Lichtenfels, Kronach, Kulmbach, Hof, Bayreuth and Wunsiedel said
in a joint statement.
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.
Beyond hospitals and care homes, sports halls and convention
centres left vacant by lockdown restrictions will become venues
for mass inoculations.
In Italy, temporary solar-powered healthcare pavilions
designed to look like five-petalled primrose flowers - a symbol
of spring - sprouted in town squares.
NEW VARIANT
At the Santa Maria hospital in Portugal's capital Lisbon,
Pedro Pires waited for a shot with other nurses at the end of a
10-hour overnight shift. "It has been tiring ... a lot of work,"
he told Reuters.
Branka Anicic, 81, a resident of a care home in Zagreb and
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.
Vaccinations also started in Norway, which is not a member
of the bloc but part of the EU's drive.
"I feel like a historical figure ... almost like the first
man on the Moon," said care home resident Svein Andersen, 67, as
he received the country's first shot in the capital Oslo.
Some other European countries outside the EU, such as
Britain, Switzerland and Serbia, have already started
vaccinating their citizens with the Pfizer jab in recent weeks.
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.
"We know that the pandemic won't just disappear as of today,
but the vaccine is the beginning of the victory over the
pandemic, the vaccine is a 'game changer'. We have always know
that, and today is the first day of this new phase," Austrian
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
Over the past week, cases of the UK variant have been
detected in Australia, Hong Kong and in several European
countries, mostly recently Sweden and France. So far, scientists
say there is no evidence to suggest the vaccines developed will
be any less effective against them.
In Spain, doses were delivered by air to its island
territories and the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
"Today is the first day of the countdown to getting our
lives back," said Vassilis Kikilias, the health minister of
Greece where the roll-out was a more ceremonial affair. The
president, the premier, the military chief and a bishop were all
due to get shots on Sunday.
"We are at war, but our weapon has arrived and it is in
these small vials," the head of Bulgaria's anti-virus taskforce,
General Ventsislav Mutafchiiski said after getting his
vaccination in Sofia.
(Additional reporting by Catarina Demony in Lisbon, 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)
Astrazeneca (AZN)