Madrid: Spain received on Tuesday the first shipment of the vaccine against COVID-19 developed by the US pharmaceutical company Moderna, national media said.
According to reports citing the Spanish government, a truck delivered the vaccine from Belgium to a warehouse belonging to the Spanish Health Ministry early on Tuesday. The vaccine will soon be distributed across the autonomous communities of the country.
Earlier last week, Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa announced that the country expects to receive 600,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine in the coming weeks.
On December 27, Spain started its vaccination campaign. To date, over 740,000 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have been delivered to the country. The first people to receive the shots were medical personnel, as well as residents and employees of nursing homes.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Spain has confirmed over 2.1 million positive COVID-19 cases and a death toll of more than 52,000.