ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th December, 2020) Italy will distribute over 1.8 million doses of Pfizer vaccine during the first phase of national vaccination, the press service of Domenico Arcuri, Italy's special commissioner for the healthcare emergency, said on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Italy and other seven European states agreed on a start date of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, saying that it would start in December, after the European Medicines Agency approved the use of the vaccine developed by Pfizer.
"The first phase of mass vaccination will cover the group of citizens that the government has designated as prioritized: health care workers, personnel of public and private hospitals, patients and staff of homes for elderly people," the press service said.
According to the statement, the majority of vaccines will be sent to five regions: 304,995 doses to the region of Lombardy, 179,818 to the region of Lazio, 170,995 to the region of Piedmont, 164,278 to the region of Veneto and 135,890 to the region of Campania.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Italy has confirmed 14,839 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of infections reaching 1,870,576. On Tuesday, the country registered 11,770 new daily COVID-19 cases.
