As Portugal closes in on its goal of fully vaccinating 85 per cent of the population against Covid-19 in nine months, other countries in Europe and beyond want to know how it was accomplished.

A lot of the credit is going to Rear Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo. With his team from the three branches of the armed forces, the naval officer took charge of the vaccine rollout in February — perhaps the moment of greatest tension in Portugal over the pandemic.

Now, the county could be just days away from hitting its target, according to AP.

As of Wednesday, 84pc of the total population was fully vaccinated, the highest globally, according to Our World in Data.

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