Italy COVID Emergency Official Says Ready to Use All Legal Means to Reach Vaccine Targets

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th March, 2021) Italy's COVID-19 emergency commissioner Francesco Paolo Figliuolo said on Monday that he was ready to use all legal means to reach the national coronavirus vaccination targets.

"The regional governments have their health models. What interests me is that they achieve their (target) numbers ... I am willing to do anything that is within the realm of legality to reach the numbers," Figliuolo was quoted by Italian Ansa news agency as saying.

The official noted that around 3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were expected to be delivered to Italy before the end of March.

"That will take us to a total of 14.17 million doses since the start of the campaign, compared to the initial estimate of 15.

6 million. But that is more than had been forecast with the (delivery) delays of the (pharmaceutical) companies," he added.

The Italian authorities have set an objective to vaccinate at least 80 percent of its 60-million population and achieve herd immunity by early fall. The country has so far administered over 9.4 million vaccine doses and fully vaccinated 3 million people.

On Friday, authorities of Italy's southern region of Campania announced that they had reached an agreement with the Russian Direct Investment Fund to purchase about two million doses of Sputnik V vaccine. The deal cannot enter into force until the vaccine is authorized by European and Italian medical regulators.