At the 7th Ibero-American Meeting of Ministers of Finance and Economy, held via video conference, Venezuela’s Executive Vice-president Delcy Rodríguez said inequality is the wrong way to address the COVID-19 pandemic, in a clear reference to the existing differences and inequality in the world to access vaccines.
In her statement, Rodríguez pointed out that this has happened «because the mostly neoliberal, capitalist world has been suffering from poverty and unequal access of the vast majority to health systems . Inequality in handling the pandemic is the wrongest way humanity can take. »
The Venezuelan vice-president recalled that the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom, shared a very worrying figure on May 24 showing that 76% of the vaccines distributed in the world are concentrated only in 10 countries.
Rodríguez, also in charge of Venezuela’s Ministry for Economy, Finance and Foreign Trade, pointed out this issue is central to this meeting, where different multilateral financing systems, mechanisms and actions were discussed to see how to jointly address the pandemic.
Likewise, she affirmed this Ibero-American meeting of ministers of finance and economy is «an encouraging meeting because we have heard reflections such as the inability of health systems in our region to address COVID-19. »
In this regard, she highlighted that, fortunately, the public health system in Venezuela is free and of universal access.
«Our health system is the backbone of everything we have done to address and fight COVID-19, but we need a higher quality international cooperation, which is what’s calling us today to this meeting as ministers of finance and economy. We must assess what the best mechanisms to access financing are, » said the Venezuelan vice-president.