Former Minister Fernando Ruiz Criticizes Government’s COVID-19 Vaccination Policy

The former Minister of Health Fernando Ruiz has been one of the fiercest critics of the Government of Gustavo Petro, in relation to this portfolio. Photos @infopresidencia/ Twitter

Given what would be a new peak in respiratory infections, former Health Minister Fernando Ruiz spoke on his social networks. And he stressed the importance of carrying out a new phase of vaccination against the COVID-19 virus in Colombia; three years and four months after the first case detected in the country.

In his TikTok account, Ruiz – who was a minister in the government of Iván Duque, when the pandemic broke out – stressed the importance of official entities inviting citizens to get vaccinated, in order to reduce the risk of deaths among the population; especially among children, since they have had the most severe levels of diseases of this type.

“It is urgent that the country and the Ministry of Health take into consideration that, despite the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has already been declared closed by the World Health Organization (WHO), it must still be considered a significant risk and one of the causes of mortality in Colombia,” Ruiz wrote.

Former Health Minister Fernando Ruiz made harsh comments to the national government for what he described as a failure in its vaccination policy against COVID-19.

In addition, he took advantage of the occasion to throw taunts at the management of the President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, since, among other things, the application of immunological boosters in people over 50 years of age was suspended, which remained “stagnant.”

“How easy it is to criticize and how difficult it is to execute when you are in government. During the COVID-19 epidemic, they bitterly criticized us for the arrival of vaccines, for the slowness of the vaccination plan, they told us that coverage was not achieved, that we were too slow. That the vaccines did not arrive ”, indicated Ruiz, who delivered doses to 70.2% of the population.

Thus, he expressed his concern about the zero progress in vaccination during Petro’s almost 11-month term, according to the figures he shared in this video, lasting 3 minutes and 28 seconds.

From July 2022 to April 2023, when the last measurement was made, the vaccinated rate only advanced 1.4%; despite the fact that they had the commitment to redouble their efforts in at least 400 municipalities that had less than 50% of their people vaccinated and exceed this indicator of 70%.

Former Minister Ruiz criticized the suspension of vaccination against COVID-19, especially in minors. Photo Colpress.

According to Ruiz, the bivariate vaccines never arrived and, to date, the risk of COVID-19 has been increasing.

“The surprise for us is that they have barely advanced 1.4%, reaching 71.6%. This is worrying, because we are currently facing some of the most severe peaks of respiratory infection,” stressed Ruiz, who had to endure the ” downpour” due to the hard impact of this pathology.

For the former minister, it is clear that the national vaccination plan designed to deal with this virus needs to be reactivated and that all the needs of citizens are addressed.

“Executing requires effort, will and qualified technical personnel who are no longer -unfortunately- in the Ministry, because the first thing they did was remove many of these people, leaving us without a technical level,” said Ruiz, who pointed out that this unit is disarmed to combat this new growth.

These complaints by the former minister are added to the initiative that he has advanced on the change.org platform, in which he promotes a massive signing to stop the course of the health reform, which already had its first debate in the Seventh Commission of the House of Representatives and was pending to go to the plenary.

2023-07-03 23:15:35
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