Vatican begins vaccinating Rome's homeless against COVID-19
Vatican City began offering free COVID-19 vaccinations to Rome's homeless community on Wednesday, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.
The vaccinations took place in the atrium of the Paul VI Audience Hall, the massive auditorium where the Pope holds his weekly general audiences. An initial group of around 25 homeless individuals, who are all looked after in facilities run by the Office of Papal Charities, received their first doses of the vaccine Wednesday morning, according to Bruni.
"Further groups are to follow in the coming days," Bruni said in a statement.
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Vatican City, an independent enclave surrounded by Rome that serves as the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, launched a COVID-19 immunization campaign last week, administering doses of a vaccine developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. The tiny city-state has a population of only around 800 people but employs more than 4,000.
Both Pope Francis and his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, have received their first doses of the vaccine.
The vaccination campaign is voluntary and people under the age of 18 are being excluded for the time being, according to Bruni.
Since the start of the pandemic, Vatican City has reported at least 27 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
ABC News' Phoebe Natanson contributed to this report.