Vasilis Kikilias

Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou thanked the country's doctors, nurses and other hospital workers for their "self-sacrifice" as "front-line fighters" in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic during a visit to the capital's Evangelismos Hospital on Tuesday.

The Health Ministry has appointed a scientific committee to oversee the acquisition of new intensive care unit beds for the National Health System (ESY), with the aim that Greece reaches the European average of 12 beds per 100,000 citizens.

Greece's former health minister, cardiologist and university professor Dimitris Kremastinos, has died of the new coronavirus, Greek officials said Friday. He was 78.

Greece's former health minister, cardiologist and university professor Dimitris Kremastinos, has died of the new coronavirus, Greek officials said Friday. He was 78.

Former health minister and respected cardiothoracic surgeon Dimitris Kremastinos has died aged 78 after contracting coronavirus.

Kremastinos had been admitted into Athens' Evangelismos hospital with medical complications related to Covid-19 on March 26.

Greece is seeking  to bolster its public healthcare system (ESY), blighted by a decade of austerity, by increasing the number of intensive care beds and securing long-term employment for contract workers, Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias has said.

Greece is racing to bolster a public healthcare system battered by a decade of austerity before an expected second wave of the coronavirus pandemic hits the country in the fall, its health minister has said.

"It will be a tiring summer for us, full of work, but this will be a legacy for the country," Vassilis Kikilias told Politico in an interview last week.

Theodoros and Gianna Angelopoulos became the latest Greeks to donate 1 million euros to the fight against the new coronavirus epidemic in Greece, the Health Ministry announced on Monday.

The donation was accepted by Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias and has been channeled into the Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Technology to help bolster its work.

By mid-April, we should be in a position to know whether the strict lockdown measures the Greek government has taken to check the spread of coronavirus - from closing down schools to limiting out-of-house trips altogether - have worked, Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias says.

With all of neighbouring Italy having been confined to their homes the Greek government took the drastic move of shutting down all schools and universities nationwide.

The measure was announced by Health Minister Vasilis Kikilias and signals that the state is prepared to take radical measures to curb the spread of the potentially deadly coronavirus.