Booster shot in 4 months: Greece’s health experts approve PM’s recommendation

Greece’s National Vaccination Committee apparently adopted and approved the recommendation of the Prime Minister, a politician, that citizens can be administered the booster shot of vaccines against Covid-19 in 4 months and not in 6 as widely recommenced globally.

Secretary general for Primary Health Care, Marios Themistokelous, told Skai TV Friday noon that the official announcements will be made later today when also the platform for these appointments is excepted to open.

Themistokleous added that the booster shot in four months will most likely be available for everyone.

“Those who have been vaccinated by the end of August will have been vaccinated [with the booster shot] by mid-January we have the mechanism, we will support it,” he said.

Speaking at the Parliament on Thursday, PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he had asked experts to examine and approve a decrease in the interval between the second vaccine dose and the booster shot, possibly even to four months.

He announced that 30,000 first dose appointments were made on Thursday and of them 17,000 by citizens over 60 years old. A total of 45,000 appointments have been made since the announcement for the mandatory vaccination of the 60+ on Tuesday, he said.

Note that unvaccinated over 60 face fine of 100 euros for every month they refuse to get the jab.

He said that “we will know in about 10 days if the vaccines cover the Omicron mutation.”

“Nobody is discussing a fourth dose at the moment, except for very specialized categories of minor exceptions such as for immune-suppressed patients etc.,” he clarified.

“We have vaccinated 78% of the adult population. Those aged 60 and over are more vulnerable, the vaccination is extremely important, we go to villages and squares,” he announced.