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The Argentine Minister of Health, Ginés González García, resigned at the request of the president, Alberto Fernández, after the revelation that members of his environment had received vaccines against Covid-19 in his office, without having to wait for his turn like the other. Argentines.
“In response to your express request, I offer you my resignation as Minister of Health,” González García wrote on Friday (19), in a letter sent to the president.
In his place, the current secretary of access to Health, Carla Vizzotti, a 48-year-old specialist in internal medicine, who will take the oath of office on Saturday afternoon (21), was appointed, the Presidency announced.
Vizzotti stood out for having obtained the Russian vaccine against Covid-19 Sputnik V for Argentina, the first country in America to approve and use it.
González García, 75, who had already been in charge of the portfolio during the Néstor Kirchner government (2003-2007), took office in December 2019 and had to manage the entire coronavirus pandemic.
His management, marked by ups and downs, was definitely tainted by the “privileged” vaccines at the headquarters of the Ministry of Health, revealed the same day that the city of Buenos Aires made available the request for online appointments for the immunization of people older than 80 years. years from next Monday, a system that collapsed almost immediately due to huge demand.
So far in Argentina only health professionals have been vaccinated. Just on Wednesday, the vaccination of people over 70 years of age began in the province of Buenos Aires.
The scandal erupted after journalist Horacio Verbitsky said on the radio on Friday that, thanks to his long friendship with the minister, he was able to get vaccinated in his office.
“I decided to get vaccinated. I found out where to do it. I called my old friend, Ginés González García, whom I knew long before he was a minister, ”Verbitsky said.
The scandal sparked a wave of reactions on social media with the hashtag #vacunasvip (vip vaccines).
In addition to Verbitsky, others close to the government were vaccinated at the Health Ministry, according to local media.
In his letter of resignation, González García stressed that “vaccinated people belong to the groups included within the target population of the current campaign,” alluding to those over 70 years of age.
In addition to acting as a journalist, Verbitsky, 71, also chairs the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), dedicated to human rights.
Roberto Navarro, owner of Uncover Radio, the station where Verbitsky made the disclosure, announced that he had canceled his collaborations. “It is immoral that with 50,000 deaths there are VIP vaccines. It is immoral who authorized it and who was vaccinated, ”Navarro said on Twitter.
CELS officials also condemned the incident. “We received the news that the president of our organization was vaccinated outside the established system, through a chain of favors and in a personal capacity (…) The CELS team rejects this or any other action or privilege,” they tweeted.
Argentina, with 44 million inhabitants, accumulates more than two million covid-19 and exceeds 51 thousand deaths.
Vaccination began in the country at the end of December with Sputnik V, from the Russian laboratory Gamaleya, but the process is progressing much slower than initially expected, due to the lack of doses.
President Fernández and Vice President Cristina Kirchner, both 60, were vaccinated on camera to convey confidence in the vaccine.
To date, Argentina has received 1.22 million doses of Sputnik V and 580,000 doses of Covishield, a vaccine from the Serum Institute of India, the latter arriving on Wednesday.
The Argentine immunization plan also includes vaccines from the British Oxford / AstraZeneca alliance and other contracts, including through the international cooperation mechanism Covax, for a total of 62 million doses at the end of the year.
