Paris (AFP)
The first doses of the vaccine against Covid-19 developed by the American Pfizer and the German BioNTech were sent on Saturday shortly before 7 a.m. to the central pharmacy of the Hospitals of Paris, in the Paris suburbs, according to an AFP journalist on the spot .
Vaccination will begin Sunday in France, where more than 62,000 people have died after being infected with the coronavirus, as throughout the European Union.
The first injections will take place in two establishments for the elderly, in Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis) and Dijon.
Some 19,500 doses of the vaccine contained in 3,900 vials, according to the Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), were transported aboard a refrigerated truck which made the trip from the Pfizer plant in Puurs, in north-eastern Belgium.
"It's historic, these are the very first doses," said the head of the hospital pharmacy pole of the Hospitals of Paris, Franck Huet.
At the AP-HP central pharmacy, the product was repackaged on Saturday morning before it was sent back to the long-term care unit at René-Muret hospital in Sevran and the Champmaillot geriatric center at Dijon CHU.
Six bottles will be delivered in Burgundy, three in Seine-Saint-Denis, according to the AP-HP.
The arrival in the EU of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was validated on Monday by the European Medicines Agency.
The French green light was then issued Thursday by the High Authority for Health (HAS).
The launch of the vaccination campaign is eagerly awaited while a first case of contamination by the Covid-19 variant which appeared in the United Kingdom was detected in France on Friday, in Tours, in a Frenchman usually residing in Great Britain.
The campaign for the 7,000 nursing homes in France, their residents and their caregivers likely to develop serious forms of Covid will not really start on a large scale until the beginning of 2021.
© 2020 AFP