According to the Colombian Government, this measure is important due to the low vaccination rate in Venezuela, with those who share a greater border area.
Colombia will extend its National Vaccination Plan against COVID-19 to include “people who transit through Colombia in border areas, regardless of your immigration status”, As reported by the Ministry of Health this Saturday.
The director of Epidemiology and Demography of the Health portfolio, Julián Fernández recalled that migrants “with a vocation for permanence,” like the almost two million Venezuelans living in Colombia, were already included in the Vaccination Plan.
But now “it allows the inclusion of these migrants who enter the country moving to other regions of the continent or who cross intermittently to side and side of the border for economic reasons, to seek health services or because they have binational families,” he said. Fernández, quoted in a statement.
According to the Government, this measure, which seeks to prevent outbreaks in border areas, is important “given the low vaccination coverage that Venezuela has, a country with which the greatest extension of the border is shared ”.
Between Colombia and Venezuela there are eight formal steps of people, through which between 7,000 and 70,000 people pass a day, depending on the area.
“In a context of high human mobility, such as that which occurs in border cities or municipalities, progress towards some degree of herd immunity is not possible, given the high contact rate, without protecting this floating population that also has contact with the receiving community ”, explained the director of Epidemiology.
In addition to the steps with Venezuela, there will also be vaccination posts on the borders with Brazil, Ecuador and Peru, although the ministry does not name Panama, where in August there were up to 20,000 people imprisoned in border municipalities hoping to be able to cross the dangerous jungle of the Darien towards North America.
According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Health, as of December 8, in Colombia 59,715,617 doses of covid-19 vaccines have been applied, from the pharmaceutical companies Moderna, Pfizer, Sinovac, Janssen and Astrazeneca, and 25,695,273 people They have the complete scheme, that is, around 50.5% of the population. (I)
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