Argentina’s government is planning to vaccinate 10 million people, nearly a quarter of the population, against Covid-19 in the first two months of 2021, President Alberto Fernandez said.

“Argentina has a vaccination capacity of approximately 5 million people per month, with which we could vaccinate 10 million between January and February, giving priority to healthcare, security and elderly people with prevalent diseases,” state news agency Telam cited Fernandez as saying in an interview with local radio station FutuRock.

Fernandez said he will head the vaccination chain of command, which will involve the ministries of health, interior, security and defence, Xinhua reported.

“It is not an easy task due to the infrastructure required by vaccines,” Fernandez said.

“We would be vaccinating something like 23 per cent of the population, and that would allow us to enter a very tranquil March, for what could be a second wave,” added Fernandez.

The South American country registered its first case of Covid-19 on March 3 and registered 1,339,337 cases of infection and 36,347 deaths from the disease as of Wednesday.