Ministry of Health classifies COVID-related information until 2022

FACTUM reports:

 

On June 11, 2020, when the official number of COVID cases in El Salvador reached 3,481, the Ministry of Health (MINSAL) made the decision to put documentation on coronavirus tests in the Reserved Information Index. The information regarding the taking, processing and dissemination of results will be classified until June 11, 2022, according to a document available on the MINSAL Transparency Portal, which was published on September 10.

Between March 18, the day the first case of Covid-19 was registered in El Salvador, and October 6, 2020, 410,622 tests have been carried out to detect the virus throughout the country, according to the official site covid19.gob.sv.

The Minister of Health Francisco Alabí made the decision to classify this information by making use of article 19 of the Law of Access to Public Information (LAIP), literal d, which establishes as reserved information, “that which puts the life, safety or health of any person in obvious danger.

 

MINSAL’s classified information includes memoranda and communications generated by the National Laboratory that performed tests to diagnose or rule out the coronavirus through a process called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). These are the samples taken through throat and nose swabs.

Carlos Palomo, president of the Association for Transparency, Public Accountability and Open Data (TRACODA), sees this reserve of information as “illegal,” as it has no basis and the time allotted is “disproportionate.” Palomo says that this classification is general and does not specify which documents endanger the life, safety or health of any person.

The concealment of information of public interest restricts the right of citizens to know, since this information does not put the life of any person at risk, the Association argues.

“It limits the ability to obtain inputs with which to assess whether the process of taking samples and disclosure of results has been done properly or if, on the contrary, there has been any alteration in terms of the data used for projections”, says Palomo.

 

According to reports from citizens and journalists, the Ministry of Health has hindered the access to information on the management of the pandemic. Francisco Alabí, for example, has refused to answer questions from independent media journalists who have sought to obtain explanations about the purchase of $3.8 million of uncertified masks, the contagion and death of health personnel who reported lack of equipment and the Covid-19 outbreak in the Sara Zaldívar nursing home.

 

The information officer of the Ministry of Health, Carlos Alfredo Castillo, as this magazine has found and has been reported by people who requested information, sometimes does not notify the receipt of such requests, does not deliver the requested information and does not answer the phone numbers assigned to respond to citizens’ doubts. When asked about this reserve of information, the information officer did not want to give an explanation over the phone and said that a new request in writing should be made to obtain a more comprehensive explanation.

In its preliminary report on COVID-19 and Human Rights in El Salvador, published in June 2020, the Human Rights Office (PDDH) states that between March 21 and May 30 of the current year, they received 287 complaints for violations of the right to health, specifically for irregularities in the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19: 48 were for hiding information on test results, another 38 for lack of PCR tests and 38 more for the refusal to provide information about the results of the exams.

 

Read the entire article (IN SPANISH) here.

 

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