Berlin, Jun 3 (IANS): Germany will lift its vaccination prioritization scheme on June 7, making all citizens older than 12 years eligible to receive a Covid-19 jab, Minister of Health Jens Spahn announced.

The vaccination campaign in Germany "gained enormous speed" and the prioritisation would be lifted in order to "keep the momentum", Xinhua news agency quoted Spahn as saying at a press conference here on Wednesday.

So far, appointments for Covid-19 vaccinations in Germany were assigned in prioritisation groups, which were primarily based on citizens' age, previous illnesses and occupation.

Last week, the BioNTech-Pfizer Covid jab received the first authorisation in the European Union (EU) for adolescents and the German government decided that children over the age of 12 years could sign up for vaccination.

Starting next week, company doctors will be more involved in Germany's vaccination campaign and provided with around 700,000 doses of BioNTech/Pfizer in the first week alone, according to Spahn.

More than 15.6 million people in Germany have been fully vaccinated till date, bringing the country's vaccination rate to 18.8 per cent, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

Almost 36.5 million Germans have already received at least one dose of a vaccine.