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MADRID/ROME (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.
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EU countries have kicked off their rollout of coronavirus vaccinations, with the first people receiving jabs this weekend.
Italy’s health minister celebrated “the day we have been waiting for”, as a nurse became the first person in the country to get vaccinated.
Many countries in the bloc started their vaccination programmes on Sunday, amid hopes that it will mark a turning point in the continent’s battle against coronavirus.
However, the first jabs were given in Germany, Hungary and Slovakia a day early, on Boxing Day, upsetting plans for a coordinated rollout.
The operator of a German nursing home where dozens of people were vaccinated on Saturday, including a 101-year-old woman, said: “Every day that we wait is one day too many.”
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.
We have a new weapon : Europe rolls out vaccines in bid to slay COVID reuters.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from reuters.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Let s get vaccinated : Europe rolls out Covid-19 vaccine – video report
The EU has officially launched its programme of mass vaccination against Covid-19, with the goal of making shots available to all its adult population by the end of 2021.
Meanwhile cases of the new coronavirus variant first detected in the UK were confirmed in at least eight European countries, piling further pressure on the vaccine campaign to help get the pandemic under control.
In Italy, the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were given shortly before 7am on Sunday to a researcher, a nurse and a social health worker at Rome’s Spallanzani infectious diseases hospital.