LISBON, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) Portugal started vaccinating the country's security forces on Saturday, with around 20,000 people scheduled to be immunized over the next three weeks.
"In this first phase, essentially two priorities were defined: vaccinating people who have a higher risk of infection and vaccinating people who are essential to protect in order to protect us," said Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who was present at the headquarters of the Republican National Guard (GNR) in Lisbon.
According to the prime minister, both the GNR and the Public Security Police "have been indispensable to manage this pandemic since the beginning."
Costa also announced that "all those over 80 and over 50 years old who have a risk disease" have been vaccinated, as well as "health personnel, considered a priority to face the pandemic."
He said that Portugal, with a population of 10.3 million, hopes to achieve the goal of vaccinating 1.4 million people by the beginning of April.
As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is also underway in some other countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.
Meanwhile, 242 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 63 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Tuesday.
Source: Xinhua