By Magda Panoutsopoulou
ATHENS (AA) – The Greek government announced that it would start the vaccination process against COVID-19 for migrants and refugees in the eastern Aegean island on Thursday.
Migrants and refugees at the Kara Tepe facility on the island of Lesvos in the eastern Aegean Sea along with Vial facility on Chios Island and the refugee camp in Vathi on Samos Island, will be the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
It will then further expand to other islands and the mainland.
The National Organization for Public Health (EODY) will administer jabs every Thursday and Friday.
So far, one male refugee from Afghanistan has died from COVID-19 last September in the Malakasa mainland camp.
Currently, some 12,100 refugees and asylum seekers reside on the Aegean islands, according to official data released by the UNHCR between May 17 and May 23.
Of those, 9,400 (78%) reside in the permanent and temporary Reception and Identification Centers (RICs), and the majority of the population on the Aegean islands are from Afghanistan (47%), Syria (15%) and Somalia (9%), the organization said.
Migrants and refugees will receive the Johnson and Johnson one-shot vaccine.
