Dr Andreas Bender was the first HRS staff member to receive the vaccine on Wednesday morning; Credit: HRS / Facebook

Today, Tuesday 12 January 2021, marked the launch of Luxembourg's wider COVID-19 vaccination campaign among hospital staff.

A first group of over 200 frontline health workers, who have direct contact with coronavirus patients, received the vaccine at the end of December 2020 at Hall Victor Hugo in Luxembourg-Limpertsberg. As of today, the vaccination campaign has been expanded to include all other hospital staff.

Luxembourg's various hospitals took to social media to share their progress on the first day of the campaign. 

Hôpitaux Robert Schuman (HRS) confirmed the opening of its vaccination centre "the Vaccinodrome", with Dr Andreas Bender being the first staff member to get vaccinated at 09:00 this morning. The first phase of this campaign foresees the vaccination of 3,700 HRS employees from Rehazenter Luxembourg and Omega 90.

The Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg (CHL) confirmed that 60 health professionals from the CHL and the INCCI national heart institute would receive today their first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at the hospital's vaccination centre. The CHL has so far received around 975 doses of the vaccine, with a second delivery of 975 doses scheduled for Monday 18 January 2021. The hospital added that it had acquired a special freezer allowing the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be stored at -80 °C. Medical, nursing and pharmaceutical staff have been mobilised and trained to ensure the daily vaccination of at least 60 people for several weeks.

Dr Romain Nati, Director General of CHL, commented: "Vaccination is on the way to becoming our main weapon against COVID-19 provided that the greatest number adopt it. [...] We are all part of the solution: the more people there are vaccinated, the faster we can resume the normal course of our lives, and in particular improve our conditions of daily work".

The Centre Hospitalier du Nord (CHdN) also took to social media to share the news that its first staff members had received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, following its preparation by pharmaceutical staff.

Liwkeise, the Centre Hospitalier Emile Mayrisch (CHEM) confirmed the launch of its vaccination campaign, with the first staff member having received the vaccine at 10:00 on Wednesday morning. Reiterating the above message of Dr Romain Nati, CHEM noted: "We are all part of the solution".

These vaccines are made available free of charge by the Luxembourg government, which officially launched its SARS-CoV-2 vaccination campaign on Monday 28 December 2020.