Italy: Rome Fiumicino airport offers last-minute covid vaccinations

Rome: Rome’s Fiumicino airport has begun offering travellers the chance to be vaccinated against covid-19, even at the last minute before boarding their flights.

Located in Terminal 3, the vaccine centre is dedicated to passengers departing, arriving and in transit, reports newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The new ‘Vax & Go’ initiative became operational on 27 July and is the result of a collaboration between Aeroporti di Roma, the Lazio region and Rome’s Spallanzani hospital.

Lazio governor Nicola Zingaretti said on Twitter that Fiumicino was the “first in the world” to offer such a service, saying: “We must take Italy out of the nightmare of covid.”

The vaccines available at the airport are Pfizer, Moderna and the single-dose Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), and there are no bookings required.

The ‘rapid vaccine point’ will operate in addition to the major vaccination hub in the airport’s long-term parking lot where a quarter of a million people have been vaccinated since February, reports the Corriere.

Lazio regional health councillor Alessio D’Amato told news agency ANSA yesterday that 70 per cent of the region’s adult population will have completed the covid vaccination cycle by the first week of August.