All 78 residents of a nursing home in central Spain tested positive for Covid-19 after receiving their first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and at least seven people were killed, staff confirmed Monday.
According to the Spanish news agency EFE, most of those who succumbed to the virus had pre-existing conditions, while four residents are currently hospitalized, and 12 people are also infected.
The big outbreak is at the Lagartera residence for the elderly in the Toledo area, southwest of the capital Madrid.
The 33 staff members of the home must now undergo a negative PCR test before starting work, and a spokesperson said health measures to limit the spread of the virus are in place. “at all times.”
“On January 13, all residents, including nursing home staff, were vaccinated with the first dose of Pfizer vaccine, and after six days, the first symptoms began to appear in ten of the residents,” they said in a statement.
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Some staff members became ill with the virus five days after being vaccinated.
On January 21, management approved the decision to test all occupants of the home and place them in quarantine in their rooms, with families informed of the move.
The test results, on January 25, showed that all the residents contracted the virus, except one, who later tested positive.
In December, the Spanish Supreme Court ordered an investigation into deaths in nursing homes, which was a disturbing feature of the earlier pandemic, which accounted for 69 percent of all deaths in Covid-19 between April 6 and June 20.
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The Lagartera Residence for the Elderly insisted that the current outbreak was the first of the pandemic, as it remained virus-free during the first two waves of infections.
The next doses of the vaccine will be administered at home on 3 February, and the next round of PCR tests will be performed on 5 February.
Across Spain, nearly 1.5 million people have been injected with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
More than 58,000 people have died from Covid-19 in Spain and the country has registered a total of more than 2.7 million cases of the virus.
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