ROME, May 28 (Xinhua) -- After shrugging off the early challenges, Italy is now vaccinating more than half a million people a day against COVID-19 to safeguard against the spread of coronavirus variants and to avoid a future wave of infections.
Earlier this year, Italy's vaccine rollout hit multiple stumbling blocks. The government briefly suspended the AstraZeneca vaccine and delayed the use of the jab from Johnson & Johnson -- both due to health worries. In January, the government threatened to sue Pfizer and BioNTech for failing to deliver their vaccine doses fast enough.
But all that is history now, with the vaccine rollout hitting its stride. The country has vaccinated over 500,000 people on average per day in the past ten days and, according to Matteo Bassetti, president of the Italian Society of Anti-Infective Therapy (SITA), this number could rise to 700,000 to 800,000 per day by the end of June.
"We're doing well and if nothing unexpected happens we should keep doing well," Bassetti, who is also head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino Hospital in the Italian port city of Genoa, told Xinhua.
As of Friday, over 33 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in Italy. A total of 11.3 million people, or 19.1 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated.
According to a report published in the daily newspaper La Stampa, as of May 22, Italy had trailed only Spain among the large European Union (EU) member states in terms of the percentage of the population vaccinated.
Bassetti said that if Italy can at least partially vaccinate 70 percent to 75 percent of its population and close to all the most vulnerable people -- those with special health conditions or over the age of 65 -- by the end of the summer, Italy would be in good shape to avoid a new wave of infections.
"The most likely scenario is that the infection rate would fall and stay low over the summer, and then rise again in the autumn," Bassetti said. "But I think we will be able to avoid a big wave of new infections like the ones we experienced in October 2020 and March 2021."
According to Francesco Luchetta, a physicist and analyst of Italy's coronavirus data, vaccine supply is now keeping up with demand, unlike early in the rollout.
"Right now, the supply channels are open and we're getting enough to enable us to keep up the pace even if some unexpected problems pop up," Luchetta told Xinhua.
Luchetta said the vaccine delivery system in most parts of the country has been generally efficient. In 16 of Italy's 20 regions, at least 90 percent of the vaccine doses already delivered have been administered as of Friday. The national average figure is 92.1 percent. The four lagging regions -- Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Lazio, Sardinia and Valle d'Aosta -- are all above 85 percent.
According to Italy's Ministry of Health, the country's coronavirus infection rate has been declining since mid-March, and the mortality rate has also been steadily falling since a brief spike in early April. Enditem
