Uruguay has allowed vaccination of immigrants who do not have ID

The Uruguayan government on Tuesday authorized the COVID-19 vaccination process for refugee or migrant applicants who still do not have a country ID and have been in the territory for more than 90 days.

“A new online procedure that allows migrants or asylum seekers, who do not have a Uruguayan identity document, to register to be authorized to enter the COVID-19 vaccination system, ”the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) said in a statement.

Migrants will be able to complete the process “On condition of being in the national territory for a period exceeding 90 days (the limit established for tourists) and they had not previously initiated a residency procedure ”.

The MSP specifies that the approval of the request does not imply the immediate allocation of a quota with date and time for a vaccination, but the confirmation that the person can enter their data into the diary system like the rest of the population.

Also the Minister of Public Health, Daniel Salinas, raised this issue on his official Twitter account, in which he wrote that this process was born from a joint work between his portfolio, the Uruguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Directorate of Migration., corresponding to the Ministry of the Interior.

The head of the MSP stressed that “foreigners who have settled down and still do not have a Uruguayan identity card” can be vaccinated “with the same criteria for the type of vaccine according to the age group ”.

After going through 2020 with exemplary management of the pandemic, Uruguay lived through April and May after worst time of health emergency, with records of infections and deaths.

It is currently the second country in the world with the most COVID deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days, only behind Paraguay, according to figures compiled by the agency AFP.

However, in recent weeks, the numbers show a downward trend in deaths, infections and people admitted to intensive care.

While some experts still look at the numbers with caution and prefer not to draw conclusions, others understand that they are the first results of the intense vaccination campaign that the government started on March 1.

Until this Tuesday, 61% of the population has received at least one of the two doses of vaccination, while 40% of the inhabitants already have the complete Sinovac, Pfizer or Astrazeneca regimen.

The country of 3.5 million people was the first in Latin America to allow vaccination of adolescents between 12 and 17 years old.

With information from AFP and EFE

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