Europe finally starts vaccinating… three weeks after Britain became the first country to start using Pfizer jabs
- The first shipments of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have been despatched
- Most health authorities to begin delivering jabs to the most vulnerable today
- At least 600,000 Britons have already been inoculated against Covid-19
Almost three weeks after Britain became the first country in the world to offer the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in a mass inoculation programme, Europe has finally started to roll out doses of the drug.
The first shipments of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have been despatched from a manufacturing centre in Belgium, allowing most health authorities to begin delivering jabs to the most vulnerable across the continent from today.
But Germany and Hungary stole a march on their EU neighbours when they began vaccinating their citizens yesterday, a day before Eurocrats had planned to start a co-ordinated continental roll-out.
Almost three weeks after Britain became the first country in the world to offer the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in a mass inoculation programme, Europe has finally started to roll out doses of the drug. Pictured is a vaccination centre in Berlin, Germany
With at least 600,000 Britons already inoculated against Covid-19 since Margaret Keenan was given the jab on December 8, Europe’s vulnerable groups have had to wait for experts at the European Medicines Agency to give formal approval.
![The European vaccination effort had been scheduled to start at a care home for the elderly in the Spanish city of Guadalajara, north-east of Madrid](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/12/26/23/37288820-0-image-a-1_1609024337599.jpg)
The European vaccination effort had been scheduled to start at a care home for the elderly in the Spanish city of Guadalajara, north-east of Madrid
The European vaccination effort had been scheduled to start at a care home for the elderly in the Spanish city of Guadalajara, north-east of Madrid.
Instead, Hungarian doctors and healthcare workers yesterday became the first Europeans to receive the Covid-19 vaccine and administered jabs to elderly residents at a nursing home in the German town of Halberstadt.
The roll-out, however delayed, gives hope to some of the world’s worst-hit countries. At least 16 million cases of coronavirus have been reported across the EU, with more than 360,000 deaths.