MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spanish MP calls for national Covid-19 protocol for deep-sea fishing crews

The initiative promotes coordination among Spanish consulates and embassies abroad in dealing with outbreaks on vessels

Néstor Rego, a member of the Spanish Congress for the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG), last week called upon the Spanish Government to establish an action protocol addressing Covid-19 outbreaks onboard deep-sea fishing vessels.

According to reports in Galician daily La Voz de Galicia, Mr Rego’s initiative seeks to ensure that preventative measures are adhered to and to promote coordination among Spanish consulates and embassies abroad in dealing with outbreaks on vessels.

The BNG party also called for the introduction of a protocol dealing with the vaccination of deep-sea fishing crews that takes into account the specific nature of the work.

In announcing the initiative, Mr Rego noted that vessels travelling to fishing grounds in the Falklands this year were retained in port following Covid outbreaks. La Voz de Galicia quoted Mr Rego as saying that the relevant Spanish embassies and consulates acted in a “disparate” manner and “provided nil to scarce information to the relatives of crewmembers, depending on the port and country in which the ships were moored.”

Mr Rego is further quoted by the Galician newspaper as saying that “the Spanish and Galician administrations lack an agreed action protocol that impedes the disparities we are seeing in how different cases are treated, and they should be working together.”

“It’s hard to believe that there were Covid outbreaks only days after sailing if the necessary tests were carried out in an effective and adequate manner,” Rego is further reported as saying.