The Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, spoke on Monday, during a debate with members of the Roma community, on the topic of anti-COVID vaccination, the importance of mutual trust and advanced the idea of appointing a honorary counsellor at the Ministry to facilitate communication.

"I really want to ask you to go together to the community or communities, to nominate a person from your side to be an honorary counsellor at the Ministry of Health and through whom we can keep in touch so that we don't do things only on a theoretical level. Let's go together to the communities and see what kind of information or what channels of information we can use so that the information and clarifications reach all members of the Roma community and not only," said the Minister.

He participated in an online debate organized by the National Agency for Roma together with the head of the Department for Emergency Situations, Raed Arafat, and the chairman of the National Coordinating Committee for Vaccination Activities against COVID-19 (CNCAV), Valeriu Gheorghita.

Raed Arafat said vaccination was "the only safe way" to overcome the pandemic. "Even with the new strain, there are indications that it reduces the possibility of a serious form of illness," he said.

In his turn, Valeriu Gheorghita detailed how a vaccination caravan can be organized in a community.

The president of the National Agency for Roma, Iulian Paraschiv, also spoke about the causes of the low vaccination rate inside the Roma communities.

"The high percentage of unvaccinated people in Roma communities is due to the fact that they did not have access to information, they did not have a dialogue with doctors in the community," he said.

According to Iulian Paraschiv, 1,000 Roma from the public administration and communities participated in the online discussion on Monday. AGERPRES (RO - author: Oana Ghita, editor: Florin Marin, EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)