Italy’s strategy has been to inoculate health care workers first, and then its older population, before making the vaccine available to younger age groups. Vaccine shortages and discrepancies in distribution across different regions delayed the campaign. Italy has fully vaccinated less than seven percent of its population, according to the country’s health ministry, in line with the average in the European Union. But the national military police on Thursday notified 15 doctors and nurses on the island of Sardinia that they were under investigation for embezzlement and abuse of office for administering 50 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to their relatives — in many cases, younger people. An opened vial of vaccine has a short shelf life, but all the doses were administered in the early hours of the day, meaning they were not at risk of being thrown away, investigators said.

Source: New York Times April 16, 2021 18:00 UTC