Greek PM urges hesitant health staff to vaccinate

ATHENS: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday urged health staff to overcome their reported scepticism and accept coronavirus vaccinations.

"Now that we have more (scientific) data, I ask those who had not been vaccinated to seriously reconsider," Mitsotakis said during a visit to a state hospital Covid ward.

"We now know, beyond any doubt, that approved vaccines are above all safe, but also effective."

"Talk to your colleagues and explain why this is the right choice to protect themselves and the people they care for daily," said Mitsotakis, who was among the first to receive a dose in the country of 11 million people.

Skai TV reported Thursday that only 90,000 of Greece's 190,000 public and private health sector staff have been vaccinated.

The head of Greece's union of hospital workers, Michalis Giannakos, said earlier this week that around half of health staff "had reservations" about receiving jabs when the initiative began in December.

With the health ministry announcing that doses that had been reserved for medics would now be given to army and police staff, Giannakos said he had asked the ministry to "give us a second chance".

"All staff want to be vaccinated now," he told Mega TV.

More than 5,800 deaths in Greece have been attributed to coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, including a 16-year-girl on Wednesday. Over 240 people are in intensive care.

Over 276,000 people have so far been inoculated in Greece.