COVID vaccination has begun across the European Union with a publicity campaign calling on the public to “believe in science.”

The vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer is the same already approved for use in Britain, the United States and Canada.

The first Italian to be inoculated was a nurse, Claudia Alivernini. “Today I’m here as a citizen but most of all as a nurse, to represent my category and all the health workers who choose to believe in science,” she said as she was vaccinated at the Spallanzani infectious disease hospital in Rome — the site where a couple visiting from Wuhan became Italy’s first confirmed cases in January.

Italy was the centre of the first major Covid outbreak in Europe. Its virus control chief Domenico Arcuri said: “Today is a beautiful, symbolic day: all the citizens of Europe together are starting to get their vaccinations, the first ray of light after a long night.”

In the Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis got the first shot together with second world war veteran Emilie Repikova, telling the country: “There’s nothing to worry about.” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis declared Sunday “a great day for science and the European Union” as he got his dose.

European states have coped poorly with coronavirus compared to most East Asian countries, with many counting the death toll in tens of thousands. The EU-wide figure of 336,000 deaths compares poorly with India (150,000 deaths) and even more poorly with China (fewer than 5,000 deaths) though each country has around three times the EU’s population.

In France, where the almost 63,000 deaths are second only to Britain among European states, the first vaccinations were carried out without publicity as the government is wary of inflaming vaccine scepticism by appearing to utilise it for political purposes.

The government has come under attack for allowing the virus to spread rapidly through care homes, though lawsuits accusing ministers of criminal negligence have failed in France and at the European Court of Human Rights.

President Emmanuel Macron called on the French to reject Covid conspiracy theories, saying: “Let us have trust in our researchers and doctors. We are the nation of the Enlightenment and of [vaccine pioneer] Louis Pasteur. Reason and science should guide us.”