Photos show vaccines arriving at hospitals across Europe, after regulators finally approved the Pfizer shot

5:24 AM
Franck Huet, head of the hospital pharmacy division of the AP-HP (Paris Hospitals), speaks to the press in front of boxes of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines at their arrival in the AP-HP central pharmacy on the outskirts of Paris on December 26, 2020, before being transported to hospitals in Sevran and Dijon. - France's first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine were delivered early on December 26, 2020, to the Paris hospital system's central pharmacy outside the capital, an AFP journalist saw. A refrigerated truck brought the roughly 19,500 doses from the Pfizer factory in Puurs, northeast Belgium, to Paris, the capital's APHP hospital authority said, with pharmacy chief Franck Huet calling it a "historic" moment in the pandemic. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / POOL / AFP) (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Franck Huet, head of the hospital pharmacy division of Paris Hospitals, seen with boxes of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines in Paris on December 26, 202.

STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

  • Saturday marked the day that the first vaccines for the coronavirus were rolled out across Europe.
  • The European Medicines Agency approved a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech on Monday, joining the US and UK in doing so.
  • The EMA has taken much longer to approve the vaccine, and the European Commission and EU governments had pressured the EMA to work faster, Reuters reported.
  • Countries have been allocated a maximum 10,000 doses each as part of the first shipment.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Europe has begun to receive its first doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

On Monday, the European Medicines Agency approved the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, joining the US and UK in doing so, after an extended delay. 

Doses of the vaccine were manufactured in Belgium and were shipped across the European Union on Friday night.

Out of the first batch, the EU's 27 member states are by and large limited to 10,000 doses each, The Associated Press reported.

"It's here, the good news at Christmas," Jens Spahn, the German Health Minister, said Saturday.

"At this moment, trucks are underway across Europe, across Germany and its regions, to deliver the first vaccine."

"This vaccine is the decisive key to end this pandemic," he said.

Here's what the moment looked like across Europe.

 

 

Hungary
Hungarian carry boxes from the first shipment of Pfizer-BioNTec vaccines against the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) at the South-Pest Central Hospital in Budapest on December 26, 2020. - Hungary has started vaccinating healthcare workers against the coronavirus on December 26. The vaccine, manufactured in Puurs, Belgium, the first in Europe to be approved, is transferred from the hospital, the main vaccination centre, to other domestic vaccination centres. The first shipment contained 9750 doses of vaccine, which allows about 4875 people to be vaccinated. (Photo by Szilard KOSZTICSAK / various sources / AFP) (Photo by SZILARD KOSZTICSAK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Hungarian military personnel carry boxes of the Pfizer vaccine at the South-Pest Central Hospital in Budapest on December 26, 2020..

SZILARD KOSZTICSAK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Italy
ROME, ITALY - DECEMBER 26: Italian Carabinieri escort the van with the first 9750 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at the "Istituto Lazzaro Spallanzani" hospital, on December 26, 2020 in Rome, Italy. The European Medicines Agency, the authority that evaluates medical products for the European Union, approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Dec. 21, with the European Union's first vaccinations occurring this weekend. (Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)
Italian police escort a van carrying doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to the Istituto Lazzaro Spallanzani hospital on December 26, 2020 in Rome.

Antonio Masiello/Getty Images

Germany
dpatop - 26 December 2020, Bavaria, Erlangen: Joachim Herrmann (M, CSU), Minister of the Interior of Bavaria, and Melanie Huml (r, CSU), Minister of Health of Bavaria, stand next to boxes containing the first doses of Corona vaccine for Bavaria. Photo: Daniel Karmann/dpa - ATTENTION: Address has been pixelated for legal reasons (Photo by Daniel Karmann/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Joachim Herrmann, Minister of the Interior of Bavaria, (C) seen with newly arrived Pfizer vaccines on December 26, 2020.

Daniel Karmann/picture alliance via Getty Images

Belgium
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - DECEMBER 26: The Covid-19 vaccination campaign starts with the arrival of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines at the University Hospital on December 26, 2020 in Brussels, Belgium. Over the next days the -70° Celsius frozen mRNA vaccines will be thawed here and delivered to residential care centers all over the country where they will be administered to residents. (Photo by Nicolas Maeterlinck - Pool#OM/Getty Images)
Shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines arrive at University Hospital, Brussels, Belgium, on December 26, 2020.

Nicolas Maeterlinck - Pool#OM/Getty Images

France
Franck Huet, head of the hospital pharmacy division of the AP-HP (Paris Hospitals), speaks to the press in front of boxes of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines at their arrival in the AP-HP central pharmacy on the outskirts of Paris on December 26, 2020, before being transported to hospitals in Sevran and Dijon. - France's first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine were delivered early on December 26, 2020, to the Paris hospital system's central pharmacy outside the capital, an AFP journalist saw. A refrigerated truck brought the roughly 19,500 doses from the Pfizer factory in Puurs, northeast Belgium, to Paris, the capital's APHP hospital authority said, with pharmacy chief Franck Huet calling it a "historic" moment in the pandemic. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / POOL / AFP) (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Franck Huet, head of the hospital pharmacy division of Paris Hospitals, seen with boxes of the Pfizer vaccines in Paris on December 26, 202.

STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Spain
GUADALAJARA, SPAIN - DECEMBER 26: The first doses of the vaccine against COVID-19, developed by the Pfizer company, are prepared for distribution, on December 26, 2020 in Guadalajara, Spain. Spain will begin to administer the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on December 27. The Strategy of Vaccination against Covid in Spain will prioritise nursing homes residents and personnel, elderly and disabled people, and front-line health personnel. Over next twelve weeks Spain will receive 4,591,275 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. With 1.84 million cases recorded since the start of the pandemic, Spain has reported almost 50,000 covid-19 deaths. (Photo by José María Cuadrado - Pool /Getty Images)
The first doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrive on on December 26, 2020 in Guadalajara, Spain.

José María Cuadrado /Getty Images

Austria
Vienna's Mayor Michael Ludwig presents a vaccine on the occasion of the arrival of the first coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccination doses, next to (LtoR) Governor of Lower Austria Johanna Mikl-Leitner, Herba Chemosan CEO Andreas Windischbauer, Austrian Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner and Pfizer Austria CEO Robin Rumler at the head office of pharmaceutical products wholesaler Herba Chemosan Apotheker AG in Vienna on December 26, 2020. (Photo by HANS PUNZ / APA / AFP) / Austria OUT (Photo by HANS PUNZ/APA/AFP via Getty Images)
A photo showing Austrian government officials holding the first doses of the vaccine in Vienna on December 26, 2020.

HANS PUNZ/APA/AFP via Getty Images

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