Vaccine against covid-19 in Colombia will be free, Duque sanctioned the law ‘Vaccines for all’

The President of the Republic, Iván Duque Márquez, sanctioned the ‘Vaccines for All’ law, which will guarantee the free provision of one or more vaccines against Covid-19 in the country.

“The law represents a very important tool at this time, not only because it allows us to update and modernize our legislation in these matters, but also because it gives the State instruments to make risky investments that allow us to purchase vaccines to face the covid- 19 “, highlighted the president in the Prevention and Action program on Wednesday.

The president added that the initiative had “multi-party” support in Congress and in its discussion it was permanently accompanied by the Ministry of Health.

Also read: 734 new cases of covid-19 and 37 deaths reported by the Valley this Wednesday

“Thanks to this law, Colombia has a new capacity to face this situation and that we make acquisitions not only through Covax’s multilateral vehicles, but also in the bilateral negotiations that have been carried out with laboratories in all parts of the world. a world where we have seen significant progress in terms of effectiveness, “said Duque.

The head of state assured that the law will not only allow the free delivery of biologicals throughout the territory and the procurement systems, but also invite the private sector to contribute resources under the figure of “tax vaccines”, that is, , who contribute to the acquisition of these drugs and are benefited with tax deductions.

Fast processing

The bill had a message of urgency and for this reason it was quickly processed by Congress, overcoming the four debates and the conciliation process in both legislative chambers.

The initiative also managed to move forward due to the consensus that was achieved after several meetings between Congress and the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance to unify criteria and finalize details.

“With the bill, what we seek is that all Colombians, regardless of socioeconomic status and regardless of geographic location, have the right to a free vaccine against Covid-19, that is the fundamental objective of the bill,” stated at the time Ricardo Ferro, author of the project.

This law guarantees legal tools to establish strategic alliances and directly allocate financial resources for the acquisition of experimental vaccines against Covid-19 or any other pandemic that may arise in the future.

See also: Alert for ICU occupancy for covid-19: main clinics have been at 100%

The recently sanctioned law provides tax benefits for those taxpayers who decide to support the immunization of the Colombian population, through donations made to the emergency mitigation subaccount of the National Risk Management Fund or any other subaccount intended for the acquisition of vaccinations 50% of the income statement could be deducted.

The vaccine will be free for all citizens, however, it will not be mandatory.

“No one will be left without timely attention”

Prior to the enactment of the law, Duque assured that the Government does not intend to disclose the negotiations it is conducting to acquire vaccines against Covid-19, until these negotiations are concluded.

“Until each negotiation is closed 100%, we are not going to disclose it because, obviously, many of these conversations are transacted through confidentiality agreements, but we have done it by looking at the world panorama and the regional panorama. The message is vaccination and vaccination financed by the State so that this message is clear to the public, “he said.

Similarly, the president pointed out that no one is going to be left without timely care in the vaccination system, because Colombia has the advantage of being a ‘champion’ in Latin America in terms of immunization, recognized by the Pan American Health Organization, OPS.