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The objective will be to facilitate the identification of suspected positives and thus be able to take measures against the progression of the pandemic.
The Minister of Health, Caroline Darias, has announced that sales in pharmacies will be authorized without medical prescription of Covid-19 self-diagnosis tests, with the aim of facilitating the identification of suspected positives and thus being able to take measures against the progression of the pandemic.
The minister has explained that she will take Council of Ministers on July 20, the draft Royal Decree on health products for "in vitro" self-diagnosis with the aim of regulate sales and advertising of these articles.
According to Darias, on July 8, the Council of State ruled in favor of the Government reform, which was submitted to a public hearing on April 30.
"It is very important to establish self-diagnosis measures, since the requirement of prescription for sale to the public constituted a barrier and it is convenient to include it among the self-diagnosis products authorized for purchase in pharmacies without it," said Darias.
He has detailed that the objective of this measure is increase the diagnostic rate of the National Health System in order to try to identify suspected positive cases and even asymptomatic cases, as is the case with the majority of the population between 12 and 29 years old.
The authorization for the sale of this type of test was subject to controversy months ago, when several communities, including Madrid, requested that self-diagnosis tests be available in pharmacies, a measure that the Ministry ruled out.
Last May, Minister Darias justified the change in criteria by saying that "until very recently We did not have tests other than for professional use", and it has been now, when self-diagnosis devices are already on the market, that "the need to regulate it at this time and not before" has arisen.
During his appearance, Darias assured that Spain "will once again reduce the infection rate as it has done on other occasions", while warning that you can't let your guard down "because the virus is still there, lurking for those who are not protected."
In this sense, he recalled that after six weeks of incessant decline in the transmission of covid until reaching the 92 cases per 100.000 inhabitants In 14 days on June 23, a change in trend was detected, mainly among the unvaccinated, which yesterday raised the incidence to 368 cases.
Despite this, he stressed that the healthcare pressure has nothing to do with previous waves, although he has asked the population for caution and respect for anti-infection measures to stop infections.
Darias has stressed that "within a month and a half, before the end of August, 70% of the population will be immunized with the vaccine and we will have taken a great leap to combat this pandemic.
