The vaccination campaign against the coronavirus began to spread this Sunday on an unprecedented scale in the
European Union
, where about
450 million people live.
Countries such as
Germany, Spain, France and Portugal
began to be immunized with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in health workers and the elderly.
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Germany, Hungary and Slovakia
began administering their first coronavirus vaccines on Saturday just hours after receiving their first doses, altering the European Union's plans for a coordinated deployment on Sunday across the 27 nations of the bloc.
Edith Kwoizalla, 101, was the first to be vaccinated against the coronavirus on Saturday before the official start of vaccination in Germany, at a nursing home in Halberstadt.dpa / picture via Getty Images
"Every day we wait is one more day," said Tobias Krueger, operator of a nursing home where immunizations began in Halberstadt, in the Saxony-Anhalt region of northeast
Germany.
The first person in the home to receive the injection was
101-year-old Edith Kwoizalla
, according to the dpa news agency.
Krueger said 40 of the 59 residents of the home wanted the vaccine along with 10 of the 40 workers.
The German government plans to distribute more than 1.3 million doses of the vaccine to local health authorities by the end of this year, according to German Health Minister Jens Spahn.
The EU has recorded nearly
15 million coronavirus infections and more than 353,000 deaths
, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In the midst of this, several countries, including France, Ireland and Sweden, have reported cases of
the most contagious variant of the virus discovered in the UK
.
In
Spain
, the Los Olmos nursing home in the city of Guadalajara, northeast of Madrid, 96-year-old resident
Araceli Hidalgo
and a caregiver were the first Spaniards to receive the vaccine.
"Let's see if we can all behave and make this virus disappear," Hidalgo said.
Araceli, a 96-year-old woman, living in the Los Olmos center for the elderly in Guadalajara, received the first dose of the vaccine in Spain at 9:00 am.
EFE / Pepe Zamora
The Los Olmos home suffered two confirmed deaths from COVID-19 and another 11 deaths among residents with symptoms who were never tested.
In
Italy
, the first doses of the vaccine were administered to five healthcare workers at Rome's Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute of Infectious Diseases, which has been at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
"Today is finally a good day
," the country's virus czar Domenico Arcuri told a news conference.
"We see the light at the end of the tunnel," he added.
France also began administering the vaccine on Sunday.
The country's Health Ministry said it had ordered nearly 68 million doses of the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine from the EU, to be delivered between now and July.
In Prague, Czech Republic, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis received his injection at dawn on Sunday and said: "There is nothing to worry about."
Sitting next to him was
World War II veteran Emilie Repikova, who also got her fix.
The first shipments of the vaccine arrived in EU hospitals in
super cold containers late Friday and early Saturday
after being shipped from a manufacturing facility in Belgium before Christmas.
World War II veteran Emilie Repikova, left, watches as Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis receives a COVID-19 vaccine at the military hospital in Prague, Czech Republic, on Sunday, December 27, 2020. AP / Petr David Josek
The deployment marks a moment of hope for a region where some of the first countries and those most affected by the virus in the world are located, such as
Italy and Spain.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, celebrated the launch of the vaccine for the bloc, calling it "a moving moment of unity."
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"Today, we begin to turn the page of a difficult year. The COVID-19 vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries. Vaccination will begin tomorrow throughout the EU," he said on Saturday.
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The first shipments were limited to just under 10,000 doses in most countries, and the EU's mass vaccination programs are expected to start only in January.
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Each country is deciding on its own who will receive the first vaccines, but all are putting the most vulnerable first.
With information from AP and NBC News.