Willing victims are flocking to get puncture wounds at Romania's Bran Castle as the site - widely believed to be the inspiration for Count Dracula's lair - opens as a vaccination centre.
A poster showed vampire fangs replaced with syringes during a coronavirus vaccination drive at the castle this weekend.
Health workers with blood-soaked vampire fangs on their scrubs gave out Pfizer jabs to visitors, who can turn up without an appointment every weekend in May.
Visitors to Romania's forbidding Bran Castle, widely known as the inspiration for the lair of Dracula, are being jabbed with needles rather than vampiric fangs this weekend in a coronavirus vaccination drive ? ?https://t.co/YPIC9exC6E pic.twitter.com/UCmqRY6fnG
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 9, 2021
'I came to visit the castle with my family and when I saw the poster I gathered up my courage and agreed to get the injection, 39-year-old engineer Liviu Necula said.
Those who get the jab are handed a certificate hailing their 'boldness and responsibility' and promising they will be welcome at the castle 'for the coming 100 years' - as well as offered a free tour of its 'torture chamber'.
'The idea ... was to show how people got jabbed 500-600 years ago in Europe,' the castle's marketing director, Alexandru Priscu, said.
One of the visitors on Saturday was Fernando Orozco, a 37-year-old renewable energy market developer usually based in Berlin who has been working remotely out of Romania.
'I was already planning to come to the castle and I just thought it was the two-for-one special,' he said.
#Romania’s vaccination campaign going full Romanian ?
It reads “Unforgettable #vaccines now in Bran Castle” ? pic.twitter.com/f7Fi3yV9vD— Corina (@CorPirvulescu) May 7, 2021
Nestled in a misty valley in the Carpathian mountains, Bran Castle is associated with the 15th-century Romanian prince Vlad Tepes, known as 'the Impaler', although he never stayed there.
The castle that may have inspired Bram Stoker's “Dracula” is now offering free vaccines to tourists. Romania's Bran Castle will offer shots every weekend in May, along with free admission to its medieval torture exhibit. https://t.co/Rik1q9Mb0f pic.twitter.com/i466n9Wsdd
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 10, 2021
Dracula author Bram Stoker is believed to have been inspired by Vlad and descriptions of Bran Castle when writing his 1897 novel that helped found the modern vampire genre.
Romania's government has turned to local vaccination drives and 24-hour 'marathons' at major venues like the National Library in Bucharest to get as many citizens as possible immunised.
'These centres are for everyone who wants to get vaccinated but doesn't feel like making an appointment online,' Marius Nasta hospital director Beatrice Mahler told AFP news agency.
But she added that it would still be difficult to reach people living in the many areas without local doctors.
Almost 3.6million of Romania's 19million people have received at least one vaccine dose, with authorities aiming for five million by June - a potential challenge as Romania has one of the highest rates of vaccine hesitancy in Europe.
Romania has recorded 1.07million cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began last spring. At least 28,903 deaths have been reported.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
