President of Venezuela and his Wife receive first dose of Russian Vaccine

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, received the first dose of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in Caracas on Saturday, according to images broadcast on state television.

Maduro, dressed in white, said he felt good after the injection he received a few minutes before from his wife in front of the television cameras, while commenting that he is confident in its effectiveness.

“All the studies say that the Russian vaccine is a vaccine with great power to generate immunity. With the favor of God and science, Russian science,” said Maduro seconds before receiving the dose.

“Cilia is braver than me, it did hurt me. But well, I feel good,” he commented after being inoculated.

The Venezuelan president stressed that they have distributed 60% of the 100,000 Russian vaccines that they received at the beginning of February to date, in a process that prioritizes medical personnel, as well as officials and deputies, in a first stage.

The South American country has so far invested about 200 million dollars to buy 10 million doses of the Russian vaccine, while it has unsuccessfully asked to use part of the gold that remains in the Bank of England to purchase vaccines through the Organization.

The oil nation, hit by a severe economic crisis and under US sanctions, also received 500,000 doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine earlier in the week and Maduro announced that they will begin immunizing more people with those doses starting Monday.

Venezuela has reported 141,356 cases of coronavirus since March 2020 and records 1,371 deaths from the disease, according to official data provided on Friday. The numbers are far below those infected in other nations in the region.

Opposition political leaders and medical personnel in the country question these official figures and assure that there is an under-registration of cases due to the lack of sufficient evidence to detect them.