Covid-19: Ecuador takes a step forward and makes vaccination compulsory from five years old
A child is vaccinated against Covid-19 at a school in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in November 2021. Ecuador vaccinates children aged 5 to 11 with Pfizer and Sinovac.
AP - Dolores Ochoa
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
This is a world first, Ecuador has just made anti-Covid 19 vaccination compulsory from the age of five.
The Minister of Health Ximena Garzón indicated that this decision was in conformity with the Constitution and the legal framework, which authorizes the executive power to make compulsory the vaccination against certain diseases "
if the national epidemiological reality requires it
".
Some reactions in the population.
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With our correspondent in Quito,
Éric Samson
In the streets and malls of Quito, it is more time for last-minute purchases than to challenge a decision approved by many.
This is the case of Lourdes del Pilar, a saleswoman in a small kiosk in the commercial area of the capital.
“
It's very good,
” she said.
There are many irresponsible people who do not get vaccinated when it is the salvation of all of us.
In the street, there are still too many people without masks doing anything during the holidays.
As for the children, I have a 5-year-old daughter and I will have her vaccinated without any problem.
"
The Ecuadorian government has indicated that people refusing to be vaccinated will not be sanctioned directly, but that they will have to accept an increasingly limited social life.
A pressure already well felt by the young Venezuelan hairdresser Daniel Aguilera.
“
The vaccination record is compulsory almost everywhere, so we have to be vaccinated.
If you want to go to karaoke, to the cinema, to the restaurant, in malls, stores, supermarkets, everywhere you are asked for the notebook.
"
Despite dissenting voices in social networks, the main medical unions are supporting the official decision as the first case of the Omicron variant was detected on December 14 and pressure increases in emergency care services.
►Read again: Fourth dose of vaccine against Covid-19: "Israel is always a little ahead"
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Ecuador
Coronavirus
Health and medicine