The steps that Venezuela has taken for months to purchase coronavirus vaccines through the Covax system, coordinated by the GAVI Foundation together with the World Health Organization (WHO), have not yielded results.
So much so that this Sunday President Nicolás Maduro gave them an ultimatum.
“Either they send us the vaccines or they give us our money back! And we, if they return the money to us, we will know where to go to buy because we have already talked with world, multilateral institutions to do so, “said Maduro during an act broadcast by state television VTV.
“ Enough of the mockery against the people of Venezuela of the Covax system, someone has put their hand there to that the vaccines do not come to Venezuela, “the president complained when assuring that his government had complied with the payment of US $ 120 million required for the acquisition of the doses, which they still did not receive.
Last April, the government de Maduro announced that he had paid Covax the amount required to acquire 11 million doses.
Then, in June, he denounced that part of those resources -about US $ 000 millions- had been blocked by an international banking institution and they were under investigation. Then, Maduro linked the measure with the financial sanctions applied against his government by the United States.
“I demand today, 11 June, from Venezuela, that the Government of Joe Biden cease his blockade of money from Venezuela for Covax vaccines, “said Maduro at that time.
By then, the director of Health Emergencies of the Pan American Health Organization, Ciro Ugarte, had mentioned the existence of this outstanding balance, but had indicated that the process to send vaccines to Venezuela was “underway.”
This Sunday, Maduro he insisted on his claim. “Can not be. Eight weeks with the money frozen (…). If you can’t, if the Covax system says you can’t, give us back the money, ”he said.
In response, the GAVI alliance reported This Monday he is working on solving the difficulties for sending doses to Venezuela.
“We are trying to resolve the issue as soon as possible,” said a spokesman for that alliance quoted by EFE.
Slow vaccination
As Maduro said this Sunday, to date a total of 2. 508. 201 Venezuelans have received the injection against the covid – 19. This would be equivalent to 8.8% of its population which, according to the most recent UN estimate, is located at 19. 4236. 10 people.
According to figures from Our World in Data , from the University of Oxford, Venezuela is one of the Latin American countries in which the vaccination process has advanced with slower itud and has reached a smaller proportion of its population, since it would be among the group of countries that still do not arrive at 10% with Guatemala, Honduras , Paraguay, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
To date, the Venezuelan authorities have been administering the Sinopharm (China) and Sputnik V (China) vaccines, although they recently announced the incorporation of Abdala, a candidate for vaccine developed in Cuba.
According to official figures, since the beginning of the pandemic in Venezuela there have been 277. 635 confirmed infections of coronavirus and 3. 190 deaths from this virus.
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