EU marathon COVID vaccination drives to uneven start

BRUSSELS / FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The EU’s campaign to vaccinate Europeans against COVID-19 has begun unequivocally in a marathon effort to administer enough of the block’s 450 million people to overcome the viral pandemic.

The vaccination campaign began at the weekend, with health workers and care home residents across the block among the first to receive the Pfizer and BioNTech photos, which need to be kept at extreme cold temperatures. .

There were starter bumps: officials in southern Germany said Monday they would throw about 1,000 doses after finding they were not properly cooled. Temperature controls also caused delivery delays in Spain.

In Italy, meanwhile, some politicians have complained that Germany – the largest EU member state and home of BioNTech – may be getting more than its fair share of pictures.

The start-up problems are an early confirmation of the EU’s decision to get vaccines together, which has left the bloc going down the United States, Britain, Israel and Switzerland in agreeing and administering the first vaccines.

The EU is expected to receive the first 12.5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine before New Year’s Day, with the distribution of 200 million doses across the 27 member countries due to be completed by next September. The course of the vaccine requires two doses.

Negotiations are underway to agree on the delivery of a further 100 million optional doses under the contract sealed by the two companies, the EU says.

The EU has entered into agreements with drug dealers in addition to Pfizer, including Moderna and AstraZeneca, for more than two billion doses in total. They want to include all adults by the end of next year.

TAKING COOL

As well as being the first COVID-19 vaccine to be delivered across the EU, the Pfizer bullet is also particularly difficult to handle. For long-term storage it needs to be deep frozen at around minus 70 Celsius (-112 ° F). It can be disinfected for a few days before use, but even then it must be kept cool.

In southern Germany, officials said they would not use some photos after temperature detectors indicated they may not have been kept cold enough.

“There were doubts as to whether the cold chain was maintained at all times,” said Christian Meissner, district administrator in the Bavarian city of Lichtenfels. “BioNTech said the vaccine may have been OK, but ‘it may not be OK’, he told Reuters TV.

In Spain, the delivery of a new batch from Pfizer was delayed day to Tuesday due to an issue with temperature controls now being resolved, Health Minister Salvador Illa said.

Maria Asuncion Ojeda, who lived in Ballesol Parque Almansa nursing home in Madrid, was still delighted to receive the early Pfizer vaccine.

“I wanted to do it because this is the only way we can solve this problem,” the 87-year-old said Monday, a day after Spain began vaccinating care home residents and their staff. .

FAIR SECTION

The EU is distributing the vaccines administered together on a pro-rata basis to the 27 member states based on their numbers, and European countries have also made their own treaties to increase doses. buy separately.

In Italy, some politicians said that Germany seemed to be getting more than its fair share, at least at the time of a symbolic outbreak.

“The accounts will not add up,” Italian expert Roberto Burioni said on Twitter, drawing attention to reports in Germany that first-day delivery was up to 150,000 doses while other EU countries received just 10,000 .

An official familiar with vaccine distribution in Germany said each of the 16 German federal states had received 10,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine ahead of the inoculation campaign weekend.

An Italian journalist asked about the sources at a German government press conference. An official from the German health ministry responded that Berlin had signed a separate contract for an additional 30 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.