Health Ministry challenges guardianship ruling that orders PCR tests for travelers – Health

The Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, reiterated this Thursday that there is an “impossibility” to comply with the guardianship ruling that orders to request PCR tests from international travelers entering the country and, in that sense, affirmed that “What will proceed now will be the filing of the challenge of the ruling and the process will continue.”

Ruiz indicated that comply with the ruling “it is not viable because it has economic and health effects, mainly “.

(Read also: Court reaffirms decision to require proof of covid-19 from travelers)

He also referred to the contempt incident that he could face for not complying with the appeal. “Contempt is a manifest attitude of ill will, of negligence, of seeking to obstruct or conscientiously deceive justice and this is not our situation. Ours is the impossibility from the point of view of health and defense of public health in this country of being able to apply a ruling that generates an extreme situation in the face of public health policy, “he said.

Ruiz argued that Colombia has been in strong conditions for ten months to contain the pandemic. “A measure to quarantine 120,000 people who travel each month, implies effects on mental health and public tranquilityto. We Colombians have a level of exhaustion in this regard, ”he said.

(Read also: Could the Ministry of Health be arrested for failure on PCR tests?)

“We have been respectful of orders and abided by hundreds of guardianships, respecting the institutional order,” he indicated and pointed out that this case is a complex situation: “Particularly in the third order limits the capacity as a public health authority to deal with the health emergency linking the issue between the imposition of tests and the culmination of the emergency, which means that we cannot develop the gradualness that we have been giving ”.

“The critical debate is to what extent individual rights in a field of
a pandemic could have limitations, how the right to health competes
with that of work and mobilization. That falls within the realm of public health,
which includes collective interventions, policies aimed at the entire
population, “he added.

(Too: Government maintains that travelers should not present PCR test)

Beyond the ruling, he said, the complicating issue is the limitation of the
capacity of the health authority to maintain a comprehensive strategy in a
complicated subject such as a pandemic.

Compared to other countries that request the test, argued the head of
the Health portfolio, “the epidemiological situation is diverse.” “Colombia has had a spread of contagion with a flattened curve, while in Europe, for example, there are peaks and there are countries that have very large differential effects and the borders are porous,” he concluded.

Challenge or contempt?

The minister answered some questions on the subject

So, Minister, challenge or contempt?
Challenge. There will be no contempt, but there will be an impossibility to comply.

Why is it impossible to comply?
Because in the second ruling the judge pointed out that he had already revived the previous administrative act regarding the mandatory nature of the PCR test for international travelers. In this sense, the Ministry of Health does not have to carry out any additional action.

Is it necessary to present proof at this point?
Not at this time, because the deadlines have not been met. The rest is better to ask the judge directly.

Why have you been so vehement about this decision?
The Ministry of Health is responsible for ensuring public health in all its dimensions and for designing the respective strategies. For that we have the support of experts. We are concerned that the scientific evidence and the criteria of international health agencies, such as PAHO, are unknown. The ruling undermines the decision-making capacity of the health authority, which is absolutely critical at a time of pandemic.

Why is the traveler test not working?
There are many reasons: because it does not make sense when there is already community circulation of the virus, because it is not very sensitive in the first days of the infection, because the traveler can become infected between the test and the boarding … Anyway, because it does not protect the population local against the virus.

HEALTH UNIT

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