Participants of a gay march held in Bogota, Colombia’s capital, in July of last year, join hands.[EPA=연합뉴스 자료 사진] /Photo = Yonhap News
[아시아경제 최은영 기자] The fact that a health authority in Italy classified homosexuals as a risk group for Corona 19 along with drug addicts and prostitutes is being criticized for being belatedly revealed. As the controversy spread, the health authorities publicly apologized.
According to local media such as Mesazero in Japan on the 14th (local time), in a document on the guidelines for vaccination of Corona 19 published by the local health authorities in La Spezia, a city in Liguria in northwest Italy, homosexuals are classified as a risk group.
The document was prepared in October of last year and classified the risk groups into 30 categories. In the 10th order, homosexuals were grouped together with drug addicts and prostitutes in the category of’subject to dangerous behavior’.
This was revealed in the process of La Spezia City Council requesting and reviewing relevant data from health authorities.
Sansa, the chairman of the Peruvian city council, disclosed the contents of the document on his Facebook page and criticized that there should be no discrimination based on sexual orientation, saying, “It is a complete error to connect homosexuality and the corona19 virus.”
As the controversy spread, La Spezia’s health authorities publicly apologized, saying it was “an obvious mistake.” It also promised to revise the guidelines in question.
Meanwhile, when it was revealed that the guidelines in question referred to guidelines on blood donation prepared by the Italian Ministry of Health in 2018, the Ministry of Health also announced that it would review and revise the guidelines written in the past.
Some pointed out that this controversy clearly reveals the prejudice against homosexuality, which is still latent in Italian society.
Intern reporter Choi Eun-young [email protected]