Vaccination strategy revised to cover vaccines for all residents

Ljubljana – The government adopted a revised national vaccination strategy at a correspondence session on Friday, making some minor changes after it revised the document adopted on 3 December at the start of March. The strategy now says vaccines will be provided to all residents with permanent or temporary residence, not just to Slovenian citizens.

Soldiers were meanwhile added to the nine groups to be prioritised for vaccines together with police officers, while previously only soldiers leaving for missions abroad were on the priority list.

Earlier in the day, Slovenian Olympic Committee (OKS) secretary general Blaž Perko said the OKS would like Slovenian athletes who will go to the Tokyo Olympics to be vaccinated earlier than planned now.

Under the vaccination strategy, they are in group eight of the nine groups, meaning they will get a jab just before the games, he told the STA.

Perko believes this would be too late for the vaccine to be effective while posing a risk of “potential bodily reactions”, so they would like Tokyo candidates to be placed at least at the level of diplomats.

“As ambassadors of the state, athletes represent the state at the international level, so they have to travel and thereby risk getting infected and transmitting the disease”.

The strategy was also upgraded with the data about the vaccines in line with the information provided by the country’s Agency for Medicinal Products.

What is more, the Oncology Institute in Ljubljana, the country’s main cancer treatment centre, was added to the list of vaccination centres.

When the strategy was first revised on 1 March, it was announced that 61 vaccination centres were envisaged, including 13 in hospitals.

Today’s revision was needed to bring the document in line with “certain new scientific circumstances related to the vaccines” and to harmonise it with the 7th anti-coronavirus stimulus package, the press release from the Government Communication Office said.

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