London, December 31: The military in UK is ready to vaccinate 100,000 persons per day against the coronavirus, said Defence Secretary Ben Wallace on Thursday. The armed forces could be roped in to the immunisation programme, as the government is targeting maximum inoculation of doses at the earliest to curb the pace of transmission.

Wallace, while speaking to reporters, said around 130 military planners and other staff members are working with the health department to ramp up the rollout of vaccine. More personnel of the armed forces could be deployed for the inoculation process, he added. AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine Gets Approval from UK Health Regulator.

“I’ve also got plans for up to 250 teams of mobile medically-trained personnel who could go out and administer the vaccine around the country - that would be over 100,000 a day they could potentially deliver if that is requested by the NHS (National Health Service)," Wallace told Times Radio.

Across the United Kingdom, the number of COVID-19 cases have multiplied at an exponential rate over the past month. This is being linked to the new mutated strain of virus - which has increased the rate of transmission by nearly 70 percent. Over the past two days, more than 100,000 new infections have been reported.

Britain, which became the first country in the world to begin vaccination, has so far approved two candidates. After clearing the rollout of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine earlier this month, the country's regulatory authority on Wednesday granted emergency usage approval to the vaccine developed by Oxford University in coordination with drugmaker AstraZeneca.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 31, 2020 04:13 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).