No power plants or freezers: Maduro regime’s inability to preserve COVID-19 vaccines

A recent investigation revealed that Venezuela does not have the infrastructure to guarantee the cold chains of the COVID-19 vaccine. In at least 12 states, there are no power plants – which guarantee energy service in a country where there are continuous outages – no freezers or other refrigeration equipment for dose retention..

Recently, the United States authorized the Maduro regime to use $ 27.6 million from the public treasury so that through UNICEF and PAHO it could strengthen the refrigeration system for purpose of the arrival of vaccines treated by the Covax mechanism.

Dictator Nicolás Maduro announced the ambitious goal of vaccinating 70% of the population in six months in order to achieve collective immunity. However, the precarious situation of the South American country means that this objective is far from being achieved. The health system is in a critical situation, hospitals do not have the infrastructure to deal with the pandemic. To all this, it is now added that they do not have a refrigeration system to store vaccines.

Faced with this serious situation, The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) want Venezuela to be able to recover the chain in order to continue its vaccination plan and apply doses in good condition..

UNICEF, which carried out an inspection of the country’s refrigeration systems, determined in a report that Venezuela has failed to keep COVID-19 vaccines.

The report, to which PAHO experts also collaborated, reveals a reduction in the refrigeration capacity of organic products due to the absence of refrigerators, freezers, refrigerators and power stations.

In 12 states there are no power plants or freezers, in 13 states there are no refrigerators, and in 10 there are no cold rooms or cold rooms. In addition, according to a journalistic investigation, Venezuela lacks a fleet of vehicles to transport vaccines so as not to break the cold chains.

According to Unicef, Venezuela has a vaccine storage capacity of 960.9 cubic meters to refrigerate a total of 31,040,750 vaccines. However, the vast majority of these doses are believed to be in some of the main cities and the country lacks sufficient infrastructure to transport or store them elsewhere.

MISSING DOSE OF SPUTNIK

The NGO Doctors United of Venezuela recently denounced the lack of Russian vaccines Sputnik V for the application of second doses against COVID-19 and requested an explanation from the authorities on this situation.

“We demand answers, enough procrastination, where are the second doses of Sputnik V vaccines? They started an unfinished (incomplete) vaccination plan without planning the full schedules. One dose is not enough to get protection“, Said the NGO in a message on Twitter.

He also added that “the uncertainty” due to this situation “overwhelms Venezuelans”.

Both Doctors Unidos and the health sector unions in Venezuela They denounced that the vaccination against COVID-19 is progressing slowly and in a disorderly manner.

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