Spain is setting up a register of people who refuse to have a COVID-19 vaccine – and will share it with its European neighbors.
Health Minister Salvador Illa made the announcement on Monday, although he insisted that vaccination – which was launched there over the weekend – is not mandatory, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
“What will be done is a register, which will be shared with our European partners … of those people who were offered and simply rejected,” Illa told La Sexta television, according to the agency.
“It is not a document that will be made public and will be done with the utmost respect for data protection,” he insisted.
The main purpose was to help track those who are vaccinated against COVID-19 cases, and to find out why people are not shot, a source told The Guardian.
The initiative could also help Spain regain confidence in its tourism sector, which has been linked to the previous spread of the coronavirus, Bloomberg News said.
Spain was one of the worst-hit countries in Europe in the pandemic, with nearly 1.9 million confirmed cases and more than 50,000 deaths on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University.