The impossibility of promptly acquiring the vaccines on the international market has slowed down the immunization campaign in Venzuela | Photo: Twitter: Instiuto Finlay

Caracas, April 9 (RHC)-- Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza denounced Thursday that the U.S. blockade against Venezuela is the impediment for the government of Caracas to acquire all the vaccines needed to carry out a thorough immunization campaign.  Arreaza's pointed out that without the unilateral coercive measures imposed by Washington, the anti-viral vaccines needed by the country would have already been purchased.

Arreaza said that "if Venezuela did not have its resources blocked abroad, we would have purchased three months ago the 30 million vaccines".

In this sense, he explained that so far they have received a little less than 1,000,000 vaccines: 250,000 doses from the Russian Sputnik V and 500,000 from the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm: "Not only would we have the 30 million vaccines, but we would have vaccinated half of the population if we did not have the mechanisms blocked in the international banking system", he added.

Arreaza affirmed that despite the requests of his government, the United Kingdom and the United States still have not released the resources of his country blocked abroad for the purchase of vaccines against COVID-19: "For the purchase of vaccines, Venezuela has demanded the release of at least 300 million (dollars) of the almost 6 billion blocked by the imposition of criminal sanctions.  Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom have released one single dollar.  In spite of them, we are moving forward in other ways with our friends and allies."

He said that he hopes that the director of the Department of Emergencies of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Ciro Ugarte, will be able to negotiate unblocking Venezuelan resources abroad to be able to acquire the drugs.