BUDAPEST, Dec 27, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Hungary began vaccinating hospital staff
on Saturday hours after receiving its first delivery of the Pfizer-BioNTech
coronavirus jabs and ahead of most EU countries.
Vaccinations in most of the 27 EU countries were expected to begin on
Sunday, after regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21.
“The first shipment is of utmost importance to frontline healthcare staff
fighting the coronavirus,” Janos Szlavik, infections expert at the South Pest
Central hospital Budapest, which administered the first jab, told Hungarian
newswire MTI.
“I have been waiting a long time to get it as my ability to work safely and
calmly depends on it,” Adrienne Kertesz, a doctor and the first Hungarian to
receive the vaccine, told the M1 news channel.
The first consignment of 4,850 vaccination doses was received early
Saturday at the Hungarian border with Austria, said a government spokesperson
Zoltan Kovacs on Twitter.
The doses were being distributed to five vaccination centres and staff at
the centres would receive the jab on Sunday, said Miklos Kasler, another
government minister.
More vaccine consignments are due to arrive in Hungary in coming weeks,
with a mass rollout for the population to take place in the first half of
2021, according to MTI.
More than 8,900 coronavirus-related deaths had been recorded by Saturday.