The Pancyprian Pharmaceutical Association has renewed its formal request to the Ministry of Health and the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) to allow pharmacists to administer flu vaccinations, with a meeting on the issue scheduled for next week.
Ploutarchos Georgiades, President of the Pancyprian Pharmaceutical Association, said countries where pharmacists administer flu vaccines achieve coverage rates above 90%, against around 60% in Cyprus each year. “An issue that has been settled in the rest of the western world for decades, we are still trying to discuss in Cyprus,” he told Phileleftheros. “In the rest of the world vaccinations are given by pharmacists — here in Cyprus we are still fighting for it.”
Georgiades said pharmacists had the necessary training and qualifications to administer vaccines, and argued that moving flu vaccinations to community pharmacies would boost uptake. “Access for citizens will be easier through their neighbourhood pharmacy, without having to wait for their doctor to arrange an appointment or travel to vaccination centres,” he said.
The PPA has already held meetings with both the Health Minister and the HIO. Georgiades said a political decision was needed to move the issue forward, and that previous objections had in his view been resolved. He said next week’s meeting represented an opportunity for the request to finally be acted upon. In several European countries, he added, pharmacies also administer vaccines beyond flu, with reimbursement from national health systems.
How it works across Europe
According to the official position of the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU), pharmacy vaccination is in place in at least 15 countries, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Norway, Romania, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Models vary: in some countries pharmacists administer vaccines directly after specialist training and certification; in others, nurses or specialist health staff carry out vaccinations on pharmacy premises. In several European health systems, the service extends beyond flu to vaccines against COVID-19, pneumococcal disease and shingles.
Public reimbursement or state funding for pharmacy flu vaccination is provided in Ireland, Portugal, France and the United Kingdom through the NHS, according to PGEU data and national health organisations. Similar programmes operate in Norway, Denmark, Italy and, in some cases, Belgium, Germany and Poland, particularly for high-risk groups and the elderly.
In Greece, citizens can obtain a flu vaccine at a pharmacy and be vaccinated on the spot by a certified pharmacist without visiting a doctor. Introduced in 2019 for flu vaccination and tetanus antitoxin, the system has since been extended to cover all adult vaccines in the National Adult Vaccination Programme, as well as COVID-19 vaccination under specific conditions.