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ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece’s top medical advisers said on Monday that vulnerable groups with underlying illnesses should receive booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine, in a bid to curb the rise in Delta variant infections .
The booster with mRNA vaccines, if approved by the government, will be available during the first week of September, the head of the National Immunization Committee told reporters.
“It will be administered four weeks after the second dose in high-risk groups,” said Maria Theodoridou.
People with transplants or with kidney failure, cancer patients and people with weakened immune systems were among the vulnerable groups, Theodoridou said.
In July, Greece recommended vaccination against COVID-19 for children aged 12 to 15 to protect young people and their loved ones before the start of the new school year in September.
The country reported 2,628 new COVID-19 infections and 34 related deaths on Monday, bringing the total number of infections since the start of the pandemic to 561,812 and the death toll to 13,422.
Greece, with a population of 11 million, has so far administered more than 11.6 million first shots. About 63% of the population is fully vaccinated.
He hopes to increase that figure to 70 percent by the fall.
(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas; editing by Andrew Heavens)
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