Release of resources sequestered by the U.S. allowed payment to COVAX system

The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro assured that thanks to the rescue of resources that remained sequestered by the United States, Venezuela paid the advance to the COVAX system to consolidate the country’s access to more than 11 million doses of vaccines for the Venezuelan people.

This was explained during the Sunday presentation of the balance of the presidential commission for the treatment and fight against Covid-19.

In this sense, he pointed out that Venezuela managed to free a part of the resources sequestered by the US Government, which were deposited in Swiss francs to the COVAX mechanism, “because if they were deposited in dollars they would be stolen by the US Federal Reserve”.

“It is a resource rescued from the Federal Reserve’s seizure. In spite of the financial persecution, Venezuela has paid off the COVAX mechanism penny by penny, without begging anyone, because here there are dignified, honorable and standing people. We achieved everything with effort, product of the country’s work!”, he stressed.

Likewise, he denounced once again that 87% of the world’s vaccines are monopolized by only 10 countries, but that even before this scenario “Venezuela has already paid more than half of the vaccines guaranteed by the COVAX system and has the resources to pay the total cost to pay the total of the little more than 11 million vaccines for Venezuela”.

He added that in the next few hours he will communicate with the person in charge of the Covax mechanism and with the Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom to thank them for their coordination and support to achieve a quick response to Venezuela.

“That represents a little more than 20% of the vaccines that Venezuela requires, but we are going to continue making efforts to guarantee 100% of the vaccines that the country needs”, he emphasized and instructed the Executive Vice President of the Republic, Delcy Rodríguez, to maintain pressure before the Federal Reserve “so that all the money that belongs to Venezuelans is released”.

Likewise, the Dignitary affirmed that in spite of the effort to guarantee the vaccines to the Venezuelan people, the essential thing is to maintain the preventive and safety measures because “this first generation of vaccines protects you but you can still catch the Coronavirus”.

“We are fighting to have the first generation of vaccines, but the fundamental thing is to take care of yourself. We will have access to enough vaccines in the coming months, I give you my word. The fundamental thing is to take care of yourself and have the treatments,” he said.