Spain plans to gather and share with other European Union countries about residents deciding not to be vaccinated for Covid-19, the country’s health minister said on Monday. The Spanish Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, has emphasized that vaccination will not be compulsory, but that a register will be set up that will include all the people who turned down the vaccine after being called up by the Spanish public health service. is for vaccination.
“Refusal of vaccination will be kept in a register,” said Mr. Illa said in an interview with La Sexta, a Spanish television channel. “This is not a public document and it will be done with the utmost respect for the privacy of data.”
Mr. Illa said vaccination was voluntary, but “we all see that the best way to defeat the virus is to get everyone vaccinated, the more the better.” Vaccination, he added, should be seen as an “act of solidarity with our loved ones and our citizenship.”
The remarks of mr. Illa comes a day after Spain launched its vaccination program, which aims to vaccinate 2.5 million people between January and March, all within priority groups for health care, starting with residents of old age homes and the health workers caring for them . But the vaccination plan has also become a political football. José Luis Martínez-Almeida, the mayor of Madrid and spokesman for the main opposition Popular Party, blamed the government on Monday for “a lack of information” about the vaccine, which meant many people were still reluctant to use it. to get.
The vaccination plan should be an exercise in transparency, not propaganda, ‘said Mr. Martínez-Almeida said in an interview with Spanish national radio.