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One of Romania's objectives during the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU is vaccination, Healthcare Minister Sorina Pintea stated on Sunday evening.
"In Brussels, one of the objectives that Romania has while holding the Presidency [of the Council of the EU] is vaccination, which was also promoted by the Austrian Presidency. We also had discussions with Commissioner Andriukaitis [European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis] on this topic and he appreciated our efforts very much (...) Right now, there are problems in France too, there are also powerful anti-vaccination movements," Sorina Pintea told B1TV private television station.
The Minister of Healthcare also mentioned that the Vaccination Law is on Parliament agenda right now and discussions are carried out about the word "compulsory," mentioning that, she personally is for the obligation to inform about the vaccination.
"The Vaccination Law is in Parliament and there are still talks related to the word "compulsory," whether vaccination should be compulsory or information about vaccination should be compulsory. Personally, I am for making compulsory the information about vaccination, but we must mention the word "compulsory." (...) For those communities [of the Roma] there is this type of campaign that I promote, door to door campaign (...) For these communities, the Vaccination Law is like it didn't even exit, but they are still ours to consider," said Pintea.
The Minister said this year she went to visit many poor communities around the country to support vaccination.
"It is a different world there, a different Romania [talking about some of the communities she visited], which I would have preferred not to exist this year, but unfortunately they do exist (...) Yes, I was there, I visited those communities, I vaccinated the children, there are more vaccination staged to follow, and we don't know if they'll do it, which is why I decided to watch them closely. On the other hand, however, there are these areas where people are poor and I haven't seen any special implication of the local authorities, meaning we cannot just say that 'that's the way they are,' for it's out duty to try to educate them, educate the children, since education can change them after all. This is another world I am talking about, it's a very good thing that I started this campaign," Minister Sorina Pintea stated.
