Santiago, Dec 21 (IANS): Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced that a vaccination program against the novel coronavirus will begin in the country next week.

"We hope to start the vaccination process next week, and we are going to start with the people who have been on the front lines in critical units caring for critical patients," Xinhua news agency quoted the President as saying in a statement on Sunday.

"We are going to continue with the elderly, the chronically ill, the people who are deployed fighting Covid-19," Pinera added.

The Ministry of Health reported 2,191 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, which increased the country's overall infection tally to 585,545.

According to the Department of Statistics and Health Information (DEIS), in the last 24 hours, another 53 fatalities were reported, bringing the death toll to 16,154.

On December 17, the government had announced that it will have more than 30 million vaccines to combat the virus in 2021, with the initial vaccination period utilizing 20,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

In order to decrease the accumulated incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants in the Metropolitan region, restrictions on movement and gatherings were extended to apply on weekends, with the measures expected to last until New Year.