People line up to get vaccinated during a "vaccination marathon" at Palace Hall in Bucharest, Romania, May 7, 2021.(Photo: Xinhua)

 

A woman receives the COVID-19 vaccine during a "vaccination marathon" at Palace Hall in Bucharest, Romania, May 7, 2021. (Photo: Xinhua)

 

People get vaccinated during a "vaccination marathon" at Palace Hall in Bucharest, Romania, May 7, 2021. (Photo: Xinhua)

 
Romania's largest "vaccination marathon," aimed at further boosting COVID-19 jab rollout in the country, kicked off here Friday.

The event started at 4 p.m. Friday and will continue until 8 a.m. Monday at the Palace Hall and the National Library, which had set up 40 and 10 vaccination rooms respectively.

With the help of about 1,200 volunteers -- among them doctors, nurses, medical students and residents -- the "marathon" will see vaccinations continue around the clock during this period.

"The sooner we get vaccinated -- we have the doses -- the more we can return to a normal life, the life we had before the pandemic," Prime Minister Florin Citu said when visiting the mass immunization center at the Palace Hall.

The vaccination marathon seems to be welcomed by the citizens of the capital, as some 1,500 people were immunized in about two and a half hours since the event started, said Viorel Jinga, rector of the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest.

The country's vaccination campaign, started in late December last year, is progressing smoothly, with a record 100,454 vaccine doses administered on Thursday.

According to the latest official statistics, as of Friday, 5,781,222 vaccine doses have been administered to 3,529,427 Romanians, 2,251,795 of whom have received both doses.

The government aims to vaccinate ten million people, about half of the country's population, by Aug. 1 this year.

In order to ensure that the goal is achieved, the authorities have recently accelerated its vaccination campaign by launching mobile vaccination units and drive-through vaccination spots, and organizing so-called "vaccination marathons."

Currently, vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are being used in Romania.

Globally, 280 candidate vaccines are still being developed -- 97 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Friday.