Lisbon (Portugal), March 15: Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa expressed thanks on Sunday to medical teams sent by France and Luxembourg in assisting the country to fight COVID-19.
"My thanks to the team of health professionals from France, which in the last month has given concrete expression to European fraternity and solidarity in one of the most difficult moments in the fight against the pandemic," Costa tweeted.
Composed of a doctor and three nurses, the French team arrived in Portugal on Feb. 15 to work in the intensive care unit of Hospital Garcia da Orta, in the metropolitan region of Lisbon, when the country recorded its worst number of hospitalizations.
In another message posted on Twitter, Costa also thanked the team sent from Luxembourg on Feb. 16 to help fight COVID-19 at Hospital Espirito Santo, in the Alentejo region.
Portugal registered 15 more deaths and 541 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing the respective total to 16,684 and 814,257 since the beginning of the pandemic.
According to the Portuguese Directorate-General for Health, 976 patients are hospitalized, the lowest figure since Oct. 14, 2020, with 242 being in intensive care units.
Portugal currently has 1,163,873 people vaccinated against COVID-19, 824,313 with the first dose, 339,560 with the second dose.
As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in an increasing number of countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.
Meanwhile, 263 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 81 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 March 12.
Source: Xinhua
