Thousands of women are being obliged to pay for a vaccine against cervical cancer which authorities had pledged would be administered for free on the national health service, a cancer awareness-raising group has said.

According to the group Agaliazo, the Social Security Foundation (IKA) “is depriving insured women of the opportunity to protect themselves against cervical cancer.”

The group accused IKA of failing to act on a decision announced by Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos in February, according to which all women aged between 12 and 26 should be given a free cervical cancer vaccine if they ask for it. According to Agaliazo, some 480,000 women are missing out on this right due to IKA’s alleged foot-dragging and some 24,000 women have exceeded the maximum age of eligibility for the vaccine due to the six-month delay.

An estimated 1,200 women in Greece are diagnosed with cervical cancer annually and some 500 die of the disease every year.