The President’s Legal and Technical Secretary, Vilma Ibarra, announced that President Alberto Fernandez already has the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) to be signed to enable the procurement of vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, and highlighted the following:
It is “the result of a long process” because it is a “complex negotiation”.
“The president made the decision so that Argentina can have access to children’s vaccines and to expand the range of vaccines available,” Ibarra confirmed to the press with Health Minister Carla Vizzotti. The decree is published in the Official Gazette today.
The new rule creates a COVID-19 Correction Fund to respond to a compensation payment should a person be harmed by the application of a vaccine. In this regard, Ibarra explained that it is “a mechanism that exists in many countries of the world and provides peace of mind with regard to employment.”
Regarding the immunity of state assets, royalties received by the national state and private state assets will be exempted from immunity, but all sovereign assets created in the Debt Sustainability Restoration Act will remain sovereign.
Vizzotti explained that the DNU opens up three possibilities: “agreements with laboratories, the COVAX mechanism, and opportunities for donations from different states, especially from the United States.”
Criticism of the opposition for the delay
JPC governors criticized the government for its delay in amending the legislation. “The intransigence of the ruling party in the House of Representatives when it rejected the JPC project to allow vaccines to reach minors with serious health risks was a moral slap to the whole country. Today the government sums up with such foolishness why society is roaring,” said Mario Negri, head of JPC interblock. He then added, in a statement, that the government is “wiping out DNU because the noose is around its neck” and lamented “misbehavior and excessive ideology, even at the cost of many lives.” For his part, UCR President Alfredo Cornejo emphasized that “no new DNU will correct the failure of pandemic management.”
