Ljubljana - The Health Ministry has revealed some details about the Covid-19 vaccination plan for Slovenia, under which vaccination will be free of charge and available to all residents regardless of their heath insurance status. Vaccines for around 50,000 residents are expected to be available in the first phase.

Doroteja Novak Gosarič of the Health Ministry told the press on Thursday that under the plan drafted by the government, residents and employees of care homes and healthcare workers would be the first to be vaccinated.

According to the secretary at the ministry's healthcare directorate, the plan is being drafted in the same fashion as in other EU member states, as vaccination should be organised in a manner in which it would be available to everybody.

According to the strategy, the money for the vaccine, vaccination and all related logistics would be provided by the state

Vaccination would be centralised at first, with 20 vaccination centres planned in the phase when a limited quantity of vaccines will be available.

The centres would be located in hospitals, and later, towards the end of the first phase of the vaccination, when vaccines which need not be stored at very low temperature are expected to become available, vaccination would also be performed in major regional community health centres.

In the second phase, the centralised approach would be combined with with vaccination at the primary level. In the third phase, vaccination would be carried out by designated physicians, and in certain cases by mobile units from the vaccination centres.

Lists for people who have been vaccinated will not be made due to personal information protection regulations. In addition to employees of care homes and frontline health workers, the first batch will also be available to the wider healthcare sector.

"Based on the response, we will see how the vaccines will be distributed further," said Novak Gosarič, adding that care homes and other institutions had already been asked to provide information about the number of people to be vaccinated.

The first vaccine that is expected to get all authorisations is that developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which is expected to be available at the end of December, or more probably in the first half of January, she said.

It is expected that vaccines by at least two producers will be available in January, which means that the available quantity would be constantly increasing.