Dracula’s castle is offering free vaccines to visitors

Bran Castle is offering visitors ‘another kind of sting’

Bran Castle in Transylvania (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Dracula’s castle in Romania is piercing people with needles rather than fangs after a Covid-19 vaccination centre was set up at the site in Transylvania.

Bran Castle, located in the Carpathian Mountains, is offering free doses of the Pfizer vaccine to visitors every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in May calling it “another kind of sting”.

Medics wearing fang stickers are embracing the unusual location, while campaign imagery shows fangs replaced by needles, according to the BBC.

The initiative forms part of a government drive to encourage more Romanians to get vaccinated, due to high rates of hesitancy throughout the country.

Visitors to the 14th-century castle do not have to pay an entrance fee for the service, but will receive a certificate saying that they were vaccinated at the historic site.

Those who do decide to explore the castle’s delights after getting their vaccine can gain free access to its special exhibition on medieval torture tools, however.

It’s also hoped the campaign will attract visitors to the region, which has suffered a dramatic drop in tourists due to the pandemic.

The castle, which was completed in 1388, is rumoured to be the inspiration behind Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula.

While the Irish author never visited the site, the Romanian ruler Vlad Tepes – otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler – was reported to be an inspiration for Stoker due to his reputation for cruelty.

According to the World Health Organisation, there have been 28,966 Covid-related deaths to date in Romania.

The country has administered nearly six million Covid vaccinations, equating to around 15 per cent of the country’s population.