PARIS (FRANCE) – France is on its way to reach its target of vaccinating 1 million people against COVID-19 by the end of January. It has surplus doses to increase the total to 2.4 million by February end, Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Monday.
During a visit to a vaccination centre in the eastern city of Grenoble, Veran informed reporters that France had now introduced about 800 such centres.
He said, “With the acceleration of the vaccination campaign in retirement homes, we will comfortably reach our goal of 1 million French people vaccinated by the end of this month.”
Veran said the main difficulty in France, which has reported nearly 3 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, the highest in the Europe Union, lies in not the logistics of the vaccination process but how the doses are delivered.
A new delivery of the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech would reach this week and they would be getting more in coming weeks, he said.
With the vaccines already at its disposal, France would have at least 2.4 million people inoculated by the end of February, Veran said.
That total could touch 4 million once vaccines it has ordered from other pharmaceutical companies get authorised by health authorities, he said.
From Monday, coronavirus vaccinations will be available to all people aged over 75, as opposed to only people in retirement homes, and for people, who have serious health issues.
The vaccine is already available for health workers 50 and older.