April 7th local time, on the occasion of World Health Day, Bolivian Health Minister Ausa delivered a speech expressing indignation that “less than 10 developed countries have hoarded more than 80% of the world’s coronavirus vaccine”.
He strongly condemned the hoarding of coronavirus vaccines in developed Western countries, and accused it of fully exposing the “shamelessness of the capitalist system” and that it will also be “severemost morally judged by all mankind”.
Ausa stressed that the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic is a challenge that countries around the world need to solve through international cooperation, and “the selfish way individual countries hoard anti-epidemic resources for their own benefit is very foolish”. At the same time, he called on Latin American and Caribbean developing countries to unite to issue a joint condemnation.
Bolivia broke out with COVID-19 in mid-March last year. As of April 7, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the country had reached 277,966, including 12,385 deaths. On January 29 this year, Bolivia launched a domestic coronavirus vaccination program.
The Bolivian government plans to obtain at least 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in advance for medical personnel and high-risk vulnerable people to be given priority.
But so far, Bolivia has only purchased about 500,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine from around the world, more than half of which are provided by China.
According to the Pan American Health Organization, by the beginning of April, the total number of coronavirus vaccinations in the Americas had exceeded 210 million doses, compared with about 50 million doses in 33 countries and more than 20 regions of Latin America and the Caribbean.
