BUENOS AIRES, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Argentina's ministries of defense and health are preparing for a large-scale vaccination campaign against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), by planning the vaccines' cold-storage delivery and distribution, Defense Minister Agustin Rossi said Monday.
"We have been working with the Ministry of Health for a month. First the ministers had a meeting, and now our teams are working together, coordinating almost daily," Rossi told local media, according to state news agency Telam.
Rossi said the operation basically consists of two stages: "the vaccine's journey and the vaccination operation itself."
To efficiently deliver the vaccines to Argentina, the Defense Ministry "is making all its air and ground transportation means available so that the vaccine reaches different parts of Argentina in the shortest possible time," said Rossi.
For the vaccination phase, defense staff will still be involved, but the brunt of the task will fall to local governments and health authorities, he said.
"Our contribution can be in different ways, through the 17 hospitals that we have throughout Argentina, with military staff (doctors and nurses), with military units to store vaccines or supplies temporarily, and with a proposal to organize the vaccination system," he added.
The South American country registered its first case of COVID-19 on March 3 and registered 1,370,366 cases and 37,002 deaths from the disease as of Sunday night. Enditem
