Care home residents and staff, dependants and medical workers to be vaccinated from January to March

ELDERLY residents in nursing homes and carers will be the first in Spain to be vaccinated against Covid-19, starting in January, and then all other dependent persons and medical workers will follow, Spain's ministry of health has announced.

These four vulnerable groups will be immunised between January and March, the first phase of a nationwide vaccination plan announced today (Tuesday, November 24) by Spain's government.

It is expected that even by the end of this initial phase, availability of vaccines will continue to be low worldwide, since it will be very difficult for production to keep up with demand – potentially, every single human on earth will need to be inoculated at some point, and the injections will need to be repeated annually, rather than being for life as is the case with those for childhood illnesses and some tropical diseases.

Health minister Salvador Illa says it is likely the first doses of the vaccine will come from Moderna, but that the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford ones will have been made available before the end of the initial three-month immunisation campaign.

After March, the number of people vaccinated will 'progressively increase', starting with those at highest risk of contagion and those whose life and health would be most in danger if they were to become infected.

From mid-summer onwards, Illa says, the plan is to extend inoculation to the 18 groups identified as 'priority' – details of whom have not been released as yet but who will probably include non-elderly adults aged 65 and over, people with pre-existing physical medical conditions, and so-called 'essential workers', or those who would need to stay on duty even in the event of a hypothetical lockdown.

Starting somewhere between July and late autumn, non-priority and lowest-risk groups will also be able to get a vaccine, with the aim of the entire population having been immunised within under a year from now.

The vaccination plan is the same nationwide, and will not differ between Spain's 17 autonomously-governed regions, which are responsible for managing and funding healthcare – even though only eight of these regional governments helped design the strategy – and it follows the recommendations laid down by the European Union and World Health Organisation (WHO).

Illa also confirmed today that the European Union has just closed its sixth 'off-plan' vaccine purchase deal – that of Moderna, developed in the USA and which will be packaged and distributed to Europe, Asia and Latin America via the Rovi plants based in Spain.

Head of the Spanish Medications and Healthcare Products Agency (AEMPS), responsible for authorising drugs in the country, María Jesús Lamas, said Spain is planning on receiving 140 million doses of the vaccine – based upon up to two per person needed for full immunity, she says there will be enough to inoculate between 70 and 80 million people, 'far exceeding the national population', which is currently around 47 million.

Everyone vaccinated will be entered on a register and monitored, so as to immediately locate and treat anyone who suffers possible adverse reactions.