On Sunday, President Nicolas Maduro denounced that the COVID-19 Global Access Fund for Vaccines (COVAX), a multilateral initiative led by the World Health Organization (WHO), has failed the Venezuelan people by not sending the COVID-19 vaccines that his government purchased.
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"COVAX has frozen Venezuela's money. If they can't, return the money and we will invest it in the purchase of millions of vaccines to keep moving forward," he said and recalled that his country sent money to that multilateral program eight weeks ago.
"The COVAX system has failed Venezuela... If there is no response in the next few days, the Bolivarian government will request the return of the resources deposited to the Global Access Fund for Vaccines COVID-19," the Venezuelan Presidency office tweeted.
Maduro also informed that the Bolivarian government will continue to make efforts for the acquisition of vaccines and will progressively increase the immunization process of the population.
So far, 11.4 percent of Venezuelans have already been vaccinated and health authorities expect that 70 percent of the population will be protected against COVID-19 by October.
In the meantime, the Bolivarian leader asked citizens to respect the "7+7 quarantine" scheme, which consists of one week of strict restrictions on people's mobility followed by a week of partial relaxation of restrictions.
Although the Delta variant has not yet arrived in Venezuela, Maduro warned of the need to strengthen preventive measures given that his country shares borders with Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, three South American countries where that COVID-19 strain has already been detected.