Spain increases COVID-19 vaccination pace but regional disparities remain

FILE PHOTO: Spain's Health Minister Salvador Illa attends a news conference at Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, Spain February 12, 2020. REUTERS/Nacho Doce/File Photo

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain on Tuesday increased the pace of its campaign to inoculate people against COVID-19, with close to 140,000 people vaccinated, but only 18.7% of the doses received had been administered and disparities between regions remained.

Spain has administered 139,339 doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine so far out of the 743,925 distributed to the country's 17 regions - who manage health care - since the European Union approved the vaccine two weeks ago, Spain's Health Ministry said on Tuesday.