MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina extends the sanitary emergency until 31 December

Vaccination centers in Buenos Aires City

The Argentine government has extended until 31 December the current sanitary emergency first decreed on 12 March 2020, just days ahead of the social, preventive and mandatory distancing to contain the effects of the pandemic.

The information was published in the Official Gazette, Decree 167/2021 and underlined that last year the measures were established to give the State the necessary, adequate, effective and transparent tools to combat the pandemic declared by the WHO.

The decree further explains that since the implementation of policies for the protection of the people's health, “the State has not only improved attention capacity of the health scheme and increased the purchase of supplies and necessary equipments, but has also put in place measures to moderate the economic and social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

It also outlined the role played by ANMAT, Argentina's Medicine, Food and Medical Technology regulator which authorized several Covid-19 vaccines and has successfully started the inoculation in the 24 jurisdictions of Argentina, already in process.

“The extension of the measures established in the Decree are reasonable and proportional to the threat and sanitary risk faced by Argentina, and are adopted temporarily with the purpose of protecting the health of Argentines”.

Decree 167 also “entitles the Ministries of Health and of Productive Development with the capacity of establishing maximum prices for critical supplies, and to adopt the necessary measures to anticipate shortage situations”

Likewise the Ministry of Transport can recommend the suspension or reduction of international passenger transport services, be it by sea, air, fluvial or land, as well as the suspension of destinations, and reporting the decisions to the competent authorities for their implementation.