Europe under fire for fumbling its vaccine roll-out and fighting a fresh wave of infections is scrambling to speed up the pace of injections and avoid being left further behind by Britain and the United States.
ZURICH Europe under fire for fumbling its vaccine roll-out and fighting a fresh wave of infections is scrambling to speed up the pace of injections and avoid being left further behind by Britain and the United States.
In Paris the city&rsquos hallowed national soccer stadium is being transformed into a mass vaccination hub while Italy - with 20000 infections daily - has put the army and civil defence agency in charge after new Prime Minister Mario Draghi fired the country&rsquos vaccine czar.
Over Easter Germany&rsquos North Rhine-Westphalia state is relaxing rules on who can get 450000 doses of AstraZeneca&rsquos vaccine. Clotting concerns have prompted the country to limit the vaccine to people over the age of 60 but North Rhine-Westphalia hopes its measures will now allow more people in that age group to get a first dose.
Originally it had wanted to give the AstraZeneca vaccine to pregnant women and their partners among other priority groups.
&ldquoWe can&rsquot do that anymore because I assume that those people ... are under 60&rdquo North Rhine Westphalia&rsquos Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann told reporters.
&ldquoWe didn&rsquot want to bunker these shots we decided we would get them via vaccination centres to people as quickly as possible.&rdquo
Europe&rsquos urgency to reverse what the World Health Organization branded on Thursday an &ldquounacceptably slow&rdquo start to vaccinations is growing as variants first detected in Britain South Africa and now Brazil whip up angst that acting too slowly will let the virus proliferate again.
The chaos of Europe&rsquos roll-out has been exacerbated by squabbling over vaccine exports health concerns over AstraZeneca&rsquos vaccine and some temporary delivery delays affecting Pfizer Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines.
The European Union was slower than Britain and the United States not only to order vaccines last year from companies but also in approving them. Even once they were approved vaccination rates have been disappointing.
The WHO estimates just 4% of 750 million people in 53 countries across continental Europe from wealthier Scandinavia to poorer Balkan countries have been fully vaccinated a quarter of the U.S. count.
While the European Union&rsquos vaccination rate is slowly climbing only 13.4% of adults in the bloc have had at least one shot according to Europe&rsquos vaccine tracker.
By contrast more than half of adult Britons and 38% of U.S. adults have received at least one dose official figures and Reuters calculations show.
Still the situation is improving: A Reuters analysis shows the seven-day average for the four largest countries - Germany France Italy and Spain - was at its highest yet during the last week.
Since Spain resumed AstraZeneca shots on March 24 after suspending them temporarily over clotting concerns its seven-day rolling average of vaccinations rose to nearly 200000 shots a day from 95283 daily a week earlier Spanish officials said.
The country is now converting venues like conference centres and like France football stadiums into mass vaccination centres and expects to inoculate 70% of its 47 million population by the end of summer.
Spanish Health Minister Carolina Darias has said that April will be &ldquoan inflection point&rdquo as more vaccines flood into the country.
The EU expects a major ramp-up of deliveries in the second quarter will be sufficient to inoculate at least 255 million people or 70% of its adult population by July.
About 200 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech&rsquos vaccine are due in the quarter enough for 100 million people while deliveries of Johnson & Johnson&rsquos single-dose shot will start this month.
VETS DENTISTS COMPANIES
France is also converting veterinarian and dentists&rsquo offices into vaccine centres while Italy has abandoned primrose-shaped pavilions in its squares and is getting doctors dentists and pharmacists to dispense doses instead. The aim is to more than double daily vaccinations to half a million from 230000 currently.
Pharmacies in Switzerland are also preparing to start offering doses to people over 65 this month but the government expects that once mass vaccinations become possible likely sometime in May private companies will have a role similar to flu clinics some offer each year to employees.
The Swiss government expects 10.5 million doses by July enough for roughly 5.2 million people.
&ldquoThere won&rsquot just be shots in vaccination centres doctors and pharmacists&rdquo Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset said on Wednesday. &ldquoThat&rsquos something we&rsquore hoping for something we&rsquore supporting.&rdquo
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