Preparations for the operation of the four major vaccination centres are progressing rapidly, with three planned to be set up in Athens and one in Thessaloniki.

The centres will be able to vaccinate up to 20,000 citizens daily. The project is being carried out under the auspices of the General Secretariat for Civil Protection and the Ministry of Health in cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Government and the Army.

These ‘mega vaccination centres’, as they are being called, will be staffed with specialised personnel and the construction of designated waiting areas in them, while medical staff will be procured with tablets to store relevant patient data and the progress of the vaccinations.

As “THEMA” is in the position to know, Greek authorities have already decided on four large sites that will host the facilities. In Thessaloniki more than 10,000 sq.m. will be utilised from the showroom of TIF HELEXPO, with a senior management official telling “THEMA”: “We will allocate each of our facilities to the needs of the State for this great challenge”.

As for Athens, the locations that have been selected are the Tae Kwon Do Stadium in Faliro, the Peristeri Exhibition Centre as well as the facilities of HELEXPO in Maroussi. Similar initiatives have already been put into motion in major European cities, such as Munich, where the exhibition centre has been converted into a vaccination centre.

According to the plan, the first two mega vaccination centres are expected to be operational -one in Thessaloniki and one in Athens- around the middle of February and gradually the project will unfold so that by mid-March all four can reach their maximum efficiency.

The implementation of such a large-scale plan requires the mobilisation and utilisation of the necessary human resources, a difficult challenge, given the shortage due to the pandemic.

For this reason, the Armed Forces are expected to assist in the actual vaccination by providing its doctors.

The mega vaccination centres aim to reach the goal of 20,000 vaccinations per day, a target dependant upon the approval by the competent European authorities of other pharmaceutical companies vaccines in order to increase the number of doses imported in our country. At present, the EU authorities are preparing to implement their plans with Pfizer and Moderna.

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