Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said he was waiting for the arrival of 5 million vaccines against Covid-19 via the Covax system of the World Health Organization (WHO) for underprivileged countries while his country was severely affected by a second wave of the pandemic since March.
“The Covax system has promised us more than 5 million doses of vaccine for the month of June.
We are waiting for the timetable mentioned with the Covax system to come true, ”
he declared on Sunday evening, May 30, during an intervention on public television, specifying that his country had requested Johnson & Johnson.
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The president repeated that Venezuela had
"deposited the money"
, that is to say 120 million dollars, in the accounts of the Covax mechanism. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) had already announced on May 12 that Venezuela could receive Johnson & Johnson vaccines depending on their availability while Caracas had announced that it would not accept AstraZeneca. The country of 30 million inhabitants officially lists more than 230,000 cases and 2,600 deaths but NGOs denounce underestimated figures while hospitals and clinics are overwhelmed.
On Saturday, the authorities kicked off a second vaccination campaign targeting the elderly as a priority. The ultimate goal is to reach 22 million vaccinated in December and
“collective immunity
,
”
Health Minister Carlos Alvarado said on public television. Venezuela launched a first vaccination campaign at the end of February with the Russian Sputnik V and Chinese Sinopharm vaccines. This concerned medical staff, authorities, security forces and teachers. Power and opposition have been waging a war of declarations on the subject of vaccines for weeks.
