Revealing examples are emerging of the cumulative impact that US sanctions against Venezuela are having on the Venezuelan people in the field of health, one of the key priorities of the Bolivarian revolution.

In July 2017, the US bank Citibank refused to handle Venezuela’s payment for the import of 300,000 insulin doses to meet the needs of 450,000 registered patients.

Three months later, the US blockade prevented Venezuela from depositing funds with the UBS Swiss bank, delaying a purchase of vaccines for months and disrupting the country’s vaccination schedules.

In November 2017, transnational pharmaceutical companies Baster, Abbot and Pfizer refused to issue export certificates for cancer drugs, making it impossible for Venezuela to buy them.

And in 2018, a $9 million payment through an international account for dialysis supplies for treating 15,000 patients, free of charge, was similarly blocked under threat of US sanctions.

These illustrative examples and similar ones about the blocking of food imports put the lie to the US claim that it is concerned about the well-being of the Venezuelan people.

It is clear that the US sanctions — illegal under international law — are part of an overall strategy to bring about what the US calls “regime change.”

Its aim is to undermine and topple the elected government of President Nicolas Maduro and secure control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and other natural resources and wealth.

In so doing it would reassert its domination over the region against the challenges to its control posed by an independent sovereign Venezuelan state committed to social justice and regional unity…..more here