Greek Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos on Friday heralded the announcement by the Greek Government of a swine flu action plan that will see Greece’s entire population of 11 million, including thousands of illegal immigrants vaccinated against swine flu.

Greece announced on Friday it would vaccinate its whole population against swine flu, the first country to introduce such a broad measure amid the current pandemic.

The government intends “to vaccinate all citizens and residents of the country without exception,” Greek Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news conference after a cabinet meeting.

“Our country will be among the first to obtain the vaccines but they will not be used before official international and European authorisation,” he added.

He later added that the vaccine would be administered to all submitting a written application accompanied by a medical evaluation.

The measure would also apply to more than a million registered and unregistered migrants, many of them from Albania, Bulgaria and Romania, that make up Greece’s 11-million population.

Avramopoulos added that authorities will order some 24 million doses of the flu vaccine, to secure the recommended two shots for each resident, and will start administering the drugs once they have been approved by international authorities.

The drugs are to be administered from mid-September, when deliveries are expected to arrive, starting with health workers and vulnerable citizens, including children, the elderly and the sick. Each citizen will have to sign a form registering for his or her inoculation.

A national action plan for dealing with a possible pandemic of the H1N1 virus was also discussed by the Greek Cabinet.

The plan envisages the establishment of special vaccination centers as well as the mobilisation of the private health sector and includes seven alternative scenarios for tackling the spread of the virus.

The more serious scenarios foresee the use of military and private hospitals and even hotels to treat patients and the mobilisation of trainee and retired doctors, according to sources.

But Avramopoulos maintained a cautiously upbeat outlook yesterday, stressing that the flu’s “mortality rates are exceptionally low” and reiterating that “we should get on with our lives as usual without concern.”