Covid-19 man­u­fac­tur­ing roundup: Freez­er kits to store vac­cines de­liv­ered to Venezuela; UN chief weighs in on IP de­bate

In an ef­fort to sup­port Venezuela’s vac­ci­na­tion ef­forts, the first 50 of 100 freez­er kits were de­liv­ered to the coun­try Wednes­day, the Unit­ed Na­tions Chil­dren’s Fund told Reuters.

Health min­is­ter Car­los Al­vara­do said ear­li­er this week that the coun­try has re­ceived 1.48 mil­lion vac­cine dos­es be­tween Chi­na’s Sinopharm and the Russ­ian Sput­nik V. Both vac­cines re­quire 2 shots.

The freez­ers are vi­tal to the stor­age of vac­cines, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause the coun­try’s hos­pi­tal net­work of­ten lacks elec­tric­i­ty. Venezuela has re­port­ed 201,807 in­fec­tions and 2,208 deaths from Covid-19 since the pan­dem­ic start­ed last March, but aca­d­e­mics say the num­ber of cas­es and death toll is much high­er.

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