EUROPE
Spain to approve fourth booster shot for autumn

The government will approve a fourth COVID-19 dose in the autumn, prioritising the most vulnerable groups, Spanish health minister Carolina Darias confirmed on Thursday.

“There will be a fourth dose for the entire population. This has been decided by the Public Health Commission (…) Probably, a date that can be considered is around autumn, because we are waiting for (…) the arrival of new vaccines adapted to variants, as it is in the contracts that we have signed (…) through the European Union with pharmaceutical companies,” Darias told private TV station La Sexta.

The new vaccination will start with the elderly and people living in retirement homes before progressing to lower age groups, health sources told EURACTIV’s partner EFE.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Spain has recorded around 107,000 COVID-19-related deaths, according to official figures.

In February 2022, Amnesty International denounced the “poor performance” of the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office in clarifying over 35,000 deaths of elderly people in nursing homes during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in March-April 2020.

Most of these “COVID-19 files” have been closed without the testimony of relatives of the victims or without any vital information which could provide information for future investigations, thus leaving ample room for “impunity,” the Spanish branch of the NGO stated.

Source: Euractiv.com

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