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Greece to receive 83,850 Pfizer vaccines on Tuesday, says Themistokleous

Greece received 9,700 coronavirus vaccines on December 26, the same number of dosages as all the other EU countries, regardless of their population, said Health Ministry Secretary General for Primary Health Care, Marios Themistokleous, at Monday's live briefing on the country's vaccination program.

These were stored in a deep-freeze special facility in Athens, from where they were distributed to Attica's five coronavirus reference public hospitals; on Monday, vaccines were also taken to four university public hospitals in the country: Thessaloniki, Larisa, Ioannina and Patras.

By 16:00 on Monday, 471 people had been vaccinated at Athens' five coronavirus reference hospitals, said Themistokleous. A minor incident of a "non-serious allergic reaction did occur, but was dealt with immediately and successfully."

Greece will receive its first large consignment of Pfizer's vaccines on Tuesday, he added, of some 83,850 dosages, followed by weekly deliveries of vaccines thereof. According to its agreement with the EU, Greece will receive another 419,250 vaccines by the end of January, and another 333,450 by the end of February. By the end of March, Greece will have received 1,255,800 vaccines from Pfizer, "a number that will go up, if the EU reaches an agreement for another 100 million vaccines overall," he pointed out.

Additionally, pending an imminent agreement between the European Medicines Agency and pharmaceuticals manufacturer Moderna on January 6, another 240,000 vaccines will be added on to the first quarter of 2021, he said.

On top of the Moderna vaccines, one might expect vaccines to come from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneka, if all goes according to plan with the EU, Themistokleous concluded.