Vatican City (AFP)
Pope Francis announced on Saturday that he would be vaccinated "next week", in an interview with the Italian television channel Canale 5, saying that opposition to the vaccine against the Covid reflects "suicidal denial".
"Next week, we will start to do it here (in the Vatican, Editor's note) and I made an appointment, we must do it", he said in this interview which is to be broadcast on Sunday evening but of which extracts were published by the channel.
Faced with the vaccine, "there is a suicidal denial that I could not explain, but today we must be vaccinated".
"I believe that from an ethical point of view everyone should be vaccinated, it is an ethical choice, because what we put at risk his health, his life, but also the lives of others", explains- he in this interview.
"When I was a child, I remember that there was the polio epidemic, because of which many children remained paralyzed and we were desperately waiting for a vaccine (...) When the vaccine came out we gave it with sugar, ”recalls the Argentine Pope.
"Then we grew up in the shadow of vaccines, against measles, against this, against that, vaccines that were given to children."
"I don't know why someone says: + No, the vaccine is dangerous, + but if the doctors present it as something that can be good, that does not present any particular risks, why not do it?"
asks Pope Francis.
The statements come as the Vatican announced on Saturday the death at 78 of the Pope's personal doctor, Fabrizio Soccorsi, following “complications from Covid-19” while he was “hospitalized for a cancerous pathology”.
Fabrizio Soccorsi had been Pope Francis' personal physician since 2015.
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