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MADRID, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The delivery of the 350,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that was due to arrive in Spain on Monday, has been delayed by 24 hours, the Spanish Ministry of Health has confirmed.

The ministry explained earlier in a statement that the delivery of the vaccine was "postponed from Monday to Tuesday" after it was informed "at midnight" by the Pfizer factory in Belgium of a "problem in the loading of the shipment," which affects eight European countries, including Spain.

The ministry said it has been assured by Pfizer that "the situation has been resolved, although the next delivery has been delayed a few hours and will now arrive on Tuesday, December 29th to allow the vaccination of all of Spanish territory to continue."

Spain's vaccination plan will first cover care home residents, care-givers, sanitary workers and dependent people that are not residents of care homes, with approximately 2.9 million people expected to be protected by March.

Health Minister Salvador Illa explained in a press conference on Sunday that the government expects to have the coronavirus pandemic under control by the end of the summer, by which time 70 percent of the population will have received the vaccine.

Illa also said that he expects the Moderna vaccine to be approved by the European Union in the coming days and that this will help speed up the vaccination program. Enditem