PARIS: France’s Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte will store its first vials of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at a secret and secure location when they arrive on Sunday to deter would-be thieves, the local health authority chief said.
A military plane will deliver the initial 975 doses to France’s poorest territory as concerns grow about a new variant of COVID-19 detected in nearby South Africa and almost a month after the first shots were given in metropolitan France.
The strenuous efforts to safeguard the vaccine in Mayotte, located between Mozambique and Madagascar, come after surgical face masks were stolen from the island’s main hospital last spring and sold in the neighbouring Comoros archipelago.
“The Foreign Legion will take the vials to an undisclosed location,” Dominique Voynet, head of the local heath authority, told Reuters. Voynet and the army said the police would then be responsible for protecting the vials.
Paris will also provide a super freezer but it will…