Source: CNA
EU Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, has underlined that member states need to move ahead with new vaccination strategies against COVID-19, utilizing the new adapted vaccines, and stressed that there is “no time to waste”, in a statement to the Cyprus News Agency before her departure for Prague, where she is due to participate in the informal Council of Health Ministers organized by the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU on Wednesday.
Kyriakides will brief the 27 Health Ministers on the package of measures that the Commission has proposed regarding the vaccination strategies of the member states, following the green light given by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) to the first vaccines that have been adapted for use against mutations of the virus causing COVID-19, ahead of the autumn and winter periods.
“The pandemic has not ended and vaccination and boosters remain our strongest weapons against the virus.
“There is an urgent need to put forward powerful vaccination strategies in the next months. There is no time to waste”, Kyriakides underlined speaking to CNA.
“Already new, adapted vaccines against new variants of the virus are being delivered. Now we have to clearly communicate with citizens about the vaccinations and the protection they need,” the Commissioner added.
“The pandemic has not ended and vaccination and boosters remain our strongest weapons against the virus. We have all made huge sacrifices in the last few years and we have to ensure that these sacrifices will bring results,” she stressed.
Kyriakides is also expected to brief Health Ministers on the latest developments regarding monkeypox, in the presence of a representative of HERA for the first time in a meeting of Health Ministers.
The Commissioner will also brief the Ministers on an initiative by the Commission regarding presymptomatic cancer testing and will exchange views with them on the EU’s support to Ukraine in the area of health.
