Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Sunday denounced the blocking in several countries of the funds his administration would allocate to acquire a batch of vaccines against Covid-19, which has killed more than a thousand people in the South American country.
“The funds to buy the vaccine from Venezuela have been frozen and stolen in England, Portugal, Spain and the United States,” the president said during a weekly review of the fight against Covid-19 in the Caribbean country. .
The United States, England, Portugal and Spain are among the 50 countries that do not recognize Maduro’s legitimacy as president of Venezuela, because they question the results of the controversial May 2018 elections in which the socialist leader won re-election .
“We have asked (these countries) to give us the money to buy the vaccine, through the World Health Organization, and they have refused. I reject it,” added the Venezuelan president.
Despite the complaint, Maduro has not provided details on the amount of blocked drugs or the number of doses Venezuela would purchase from them.
He reiterated that his government will receive at least 10,000,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine in the first quarter of this year, after signing a contract with Russia early last week.
“The Russian vaccine has not been blocked against Venezuela, they have not blocked it, and we are getting funds and paying for them with facilities that Russia has given us, that is, being a true friend of Venezuela,” he said.
According to the president, the 10,000,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine will be used to vaccinate the same number of citizens. Maduro himself said last December that he expected to start a vaccination plan in April.
“We have done our best,” he said of the funding of these vaccines and reiterated the blocking of Venezuelan resources in several countries.
Maduro also said today that his government is “coordinating the potential procurement of a batch of covid-19 vaccines with Cuba,” despite the country not having yet completed any of the 4 vaccine candidates it has in its development phase.
On the same day, the Venezuelan opposition grouped under the figure of the leader Juan Guaidó, recognized by more than 50 governments as the interim president of Venezuela, promised to take “all necessary steps” to obtain vaccines against Covid-19. via the COVAX platform, which consists of approximately 190 countries.