France
will open 35 COVID-19 mass vaccination centres in the coming days to speed up
the inoculation process against coronavirus in the country, said a minister on
Tuesday. The announcement comes amid growing criticism on the vaccination campaign being slow, reported AFP.

“We
are working with local representatives to put vaccination in place,” Agnes Pannier-Runacher, French Industry
Minister told BFMTV channel.

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France, which has been in the receiving end of criticism for poor vaccination, had previously resisted setting up super-sites that helps in rapidly dispensing vaccines in large numbers after an experiment with “vaccinodromes” during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009, failed.

However, the jabs have been dispensed in community halls, hospitals, doctor’s
surgeries and pharmacies until now.

But
with hospitals struggling to cope with a third wave of infections Health
Minister Olivier Veran on Monday announced that France would follow the lead of
countries like the US and Britain that have turned stadiums into inoculation
sites.

“The
army’s health service will work on developing a certain number of large
vaccination centres,” he said, adding that there would be at least 35
across the country.

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After
an excruciatingly slow start in late December and January, France’s vaccination
campaign has sped up.

But
with more infectious Covid-19 variants spreading rapidly, the caseload has
risen again, prompting the government to place part of the country, including
Paris, under partial lockdown last weekend.

So
far, France has administered some 8.8 million doses, compared with over 30
million in Britain.

The
death toll from the virus in France stands at 92,648.

On
Monday, the government announced that Labour Minister Elisabeth Borne had been
hospitalised with Covid-19, a week after testing positive for the virus.

Borne,
59, is under medical supervision in a hospital in the Paris region and her
condition is improving, her ministry said in a statement.

President Emmanuel Macron tested positive for Covid-19 in December and
self-isolated for a week while he was sick, and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire
contracted the virus in September