More than 200 million euros spent since 2020 to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Minister says

Health Minister, Michalis Hadjipantela, said on Monday that more than 200 million euros have been spent since 2020 to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Hadjipantela the biggest expenditure concerned the purchase of vaccines and medicines against COVID-19, of rapid tests and services for rapid tests and molecular tests, services from the private sectors to treat positive cases and the recovery of post-COVID patients.

Speaking during a meeting of the House Finance Committee about the Health Ministry’s 2023 budget, Hadjipantela also said that a total of 1.8 mln vaccine doses have been administered so far since the vaccination programme was launched.

As regards the Recovery and Resilience plan that has been approved by the European Commission, the Minister said that it includes 7 actions that will be implemented directly by the Health Ministry which amount to 17.6 million euros as well as 12 actions which amount to 50 million euros and will be implemented by the State Health Services Organization, the Health Insurance Organization and the National Electronic Health Authority.

Hadjipantela said that among the main strategical goals of the Ministry are to restructure Cyprus Health System and to boost and upgrade e-Health.

According to the Minister, there is an increase of 5% to the Health Ministry’s budget compared to 2022, and total expenditures are up to 1.1 billion euros

Source: Cyprus News Agency