Venezuela’s President Maduro proposes paying for coronavirus vaccines with oil

Name: First Covax delivery completed as Ghana receives 600,000 doses of vaccine under WHO-led scheme
Uploaded: 2021-03-29T08:07:37.000Z
Duration: 1 min 27 s
Description: First Covax delivery completed as Ghana receives 600,000 doses of vaccine under WHO-led scheme

Nicolas Maduro said Venezuela was working to pay for vaccines from the WHO’s Covax mechanism through oil shipments

The country’s crude exports have plummeted to their lowest levels in decades since the US sanctioned a state oil company in 2019

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A nurse inoculates a woman with a dose of Sinopharm’s Covid-19 vaccine in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo: AP

Reuters

Published: 4:07pm, 29 Mar 2021Updated: 4:07pm, 29 Mar 2021

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday proposed paying for vaccines against the coronavirus with oil, though he provided few details about how such a scheme would work.

The crisis-stricken OPEC nation’s crude exports have plummeted to their lowest levels in decades since Washington sanctioned state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela in 2019, cutting off Venezuela’s exports to the United States and dissuading many other customers from buying Venezuelan oil as well.

Maduro said Venezuela was working to pay for vaccines from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Covax mechanism – which provides vaccine access to poor countries – both through Venezuelan funds frozen in overseas accounts due to sanctions, and through oil shipments.

“Venezuela has the oil vessels and has the customers who will buy our oil,” Maduro said in a state television address. “We are ready and prepared for oil for vaccines, but we will not beg anyone.”

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First Covax delivery completed as Ghana receives 600,000 doses of vaccine under WHO-led scheme

Venezuela has received vaccine doses from allies Russia and China. The government and the opposition had been in talks with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) over Venezuela’s access to vaccines through Covax, but the government said last week it would not accept the AstraZeneca vaccine, one of the main inoculations deployed by Covax in Latin America.