Portugal reaches the target of 70% of the population with a single dose of Covid-19 vaccine – Health

The Ministry of Health announced, in a statement, that Portugal has reached, on Friday, the goal of vaccinating 70% of the population with at least one dose of the vaccine against Covid-19.

“The goal of vaccinating 70% of the population of mainland Portugal against Covid-19, with at least one dose, has been achieved today, even earlier than the initially planned date. About 12.1 million have already been administered in mainland Portugal. Of the vaccines, which have allowed vaccination with a dose At least one for more than 6.9 million people, of whom about 6.2 million already have a full vaccination schedule,” the government note said.

The target was set between August 8 and 15, and thus occurred before the estimated date. The MOH memo also notes that if only the population with the recommended age for mass vaccination is taken into account, i.e. those aged 16 years or over”, it is estimated that about 82% have already started their vaccination schedule. Of those, 75% They will already receive a full vaccination.

“The pace of vaccination over the past two weeks has remained high, with an average of more than 80,000 vaccines administered per day, and this pace is expected to accelerate during August, thanks to the greater availability of vaccines,” the document reads, which states Also, the country is waiting for about three million vaccines to arrive this month.

The calendar referenced by the task force coordinating the vaccination program predicts that between September 5th and 12th, 70% of the population will receive the full vaccination schedule, at which time it is estimated that 85% of the population will already have at least one dose of the vaccine given.

With the spread of the delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in the country, Portugal has accelerated the vaccination process, setting a goal of vaccinating about 120 thousand people per day.

In recent weeks, the process has been affected by a shortage of vaccines, with Portugal negotiating with other EU countries for additional doses.

The COVID-19 epidemic has killed at least 4,274,424 worldwide, among more than 200.1 million cases of the new coronavirus, since the World Health Organization discovered the disease in China in late December 2019, according to the latest AFP tally based on data. official.

In Portugal, since the beginning of the epidemic, in March 2020, 17,440 people died and 982,364 cases of infection were recorded, according to the Directorate General of Health.

The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which was discovered in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in countries such as the United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Brazil and Peru.