Chilean health authorities reported on Thursday that they will vaccinate migrants in an irregular situation, contrary to what the government announced on Wednesday and following a wave of criticism from various promotion and human rights organizations.
“All foreigners in Chile will be vaccinated, but we are not going to promote vaccination tourism,” Health Minister Enrique Paris said at a news conference.
The chancellor, Andrés Allamand, had confirmed the day before that both tourists and irregular migrants who had not started the process of normalizing their situation in the country would not be included in the vaccination plan.
However, and after the controversy this caused, Minister Paris reiterated that the vaccine, which is free and voluntary, will be available to “anyone who is on the national territory” except those who entered as tourists.
Immigration chief Álvaro Bellolio also explained to local media that “the migrants who reside irregularly in Chile are Fonasa A (a basic plan for universal medical coverage, targeting people with less economic resources) because they have access to until vaccination. “
The dexterity with which Chile is conducting the covid-19 immunization process against the rest of Latin American countries has led various foreign media outlets and numerous internet users to spread information on how to reach Chile to obtain the vaccine.
Two days after a Peruvian television station announced that “there are a thousand ways to get vaccinated in Chile” and reported on several ways to get into the country to get vaccinated, the Chilean government wanted to amend the vaccination plan to include so-called “covid tourism”. .
VACCINATION WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION
The government’s original decision, which was not to vaccinate tourists or irregular migrants, left the thousands of foreigners who have entered the border into Bolivia in recent weeks and who have been stranded in health camps undergoing preventive quarantine without vaccination. 1.5 million migrants living in the country.
“We call for the historic culture of Chilean public health to be corrected and preserved and to provide protection for the migrant population regardless of their immigration status,” Izkia Siches, the president of the Medical College, posted on Wednesday on Twitter.
Amnesty International’s Director for America, Erika Guevara, along the same lines stated that “neither Chile nor any other country will get out of this crisis quickly or satisfactorily if health services are not provided to all people without discrimination.”
Chile, which has added more than 760,000 infections and nearly 20,000 deaths since March, has vaccinated more than 1.3 million people with at least one dose after a week of mass immunization, mostly health workers and the elderly.
The country that has approved the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccines has pledged more than 35 million doses from various laboratories.
The government’s goal is to inoculate the entire population at risk – five million people among the elderly, the chronically ill, health workers by the first quarter of 2021 and the rest by June.