1st shipment of vaccines arrives at Budapest

The first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 arrived in Hungary on Saturday. A truck transporting the vaccine received a police escort from the country's western border with Austria to the capital, Budapest.

The vaccine, manufactured in Puurs, Belgium, was the first in Europe to be approved and the first consignment of vaccines will be delivered to five designated hospital vaccination sites.

The Hungarian government announced that the first vaccination had already been given to a healthcare worker in the South Pest Central Hospital of Budapest on Saturday. The first shipment contains 9,700 vaccines, which allows 4,870 healthcare workers to be vaccinated, as one person has to be given two vaccinations 21 days apart.

More shipments are expected and authorities will continue to vaccinate health workers for several weeks. Currently, there are over 179,000 COVID-19 infected people in Hungary. The total number of coronavirus deaths in the country has now reached 8,951.