Venezuela helps Brazil

Caracas: Venezuela will send further shipments of oxygen to help neighbouring Brazil treat Covid19 patients, President Nicolas Maduro said yesterday, after sending a convoy of oxygenfilled trucks to the Amazonian city of Manaus last month.

Maduro, a socialist, has a tense relationship with Brazilian rightwing President Jair Bolsonaro, who said in January the Venezuelan oxygen was welcome but that Maduro should focus on helping Venezuelans.

Maduro said three trucks were loading oxygen produced by Venezuelan stateowned steel company Sidor. Two were destined for Brazil’s northern Amazonas state and one to Roraima state, he said.

The outbreak in Brazil’s Amazonian region has been particularly severe. Doctors at overrun hospitals in Manaus said patients had had to share cylinders and some had died because of lack of oxygen. — Reuters

PHOTO: REUTERS A man walks near a Covid19 vaccination centre aboard the MS Thurgau excursion boat in the harbour of Romanshorn on Lake Constance, Switzerland, yesterday. The 89yearold passenger ship, out of commission due to the coronavirus pandemic, has been repurposed as a Covid19 vaccination centre for thousands of residents from cities on Lake Constance.