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DUBLIN, March 22 (Xinhua) – More than 180,000 people in Ireland have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, representing less than 4 percent of the country’s around 5 million people, according to official statistics released Monday.
Ireland’s Department of Health said in a statement late Monday that a total of 668,529 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in Ireland as of Friday.
Of all those who had been vaccinated in the country, 487,466 people had received their first dose and 181,063 had received both, the department said.
Currently, three COVID-19 vaccines are being used in Ireland, namely Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. Use of the AstraZeneca vaccine resumed in Ireland on Saturday after the European Medicines Agency said the vaccine’s benefits outweighed its risks.
The Irish government suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 14 due to concerns about blood clots.
Paul Reid, executive director of the Health Service Executive, a state agency responsible for public health in Ireland, said earlier this month that the country’s vaccination program had been repeatedly interrupted due to the untimely and insufficient supply of COVID-19 vaccines.
According to the Department of Health, 231,119 people in Ireland have been infected with COVID-19 and 4,588 of them have died from the disease.
As the world struggles to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in an increasing number of countries with already licensed coronavirus vaccines.
Meanwhile, 264 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide, 82 of them in clinical trials, in countries such as Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to the latest information released by the World Health Organization. Final product
