First woman to receive the Covid vaccine in Spain turns 100: Pedro Sanchez brands centenarian ‘an example to the world’

ARACELI Hidalgo, the first person to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in Spain, has turned 100 years old.

The great-grandmother is celebrating her milestone birthday with family this Tuesday, January 20. 

Born in Granada a century ago, Araceli shot to fame after becoming the first person to be inoculated with Spain’s coronavirus jab in December 2020.

She currently lives in ‘Los Olmos’, a care home in Guadalajara.

In 2021, the mother-of-two was awarded the Gold Medal of Castilla-La Mancha from the region’s president, Emiliano Garcia-Page.

In a video published on X, Garcia-Page said that Araceli became a “symbol of hope in the face of Covid” and that he remembered her “cheerful attitude and willingness to receive the first Covid vaccine in Spain”.

President Pedro Sanchez also congratulated Araceli with a tweet.

“She was the visible face of the vaccination campaign and commitment of Spanish society, and ended up becoming an example to the world. Happy birthday, Araceli!”, he said. 

From December 27, 2020, the date of Araceli’s historic inoculation, over 105,872,140 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered, with over 40.7 million Spaniards having been fully vaccinated.

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