00:00As Brazil's health ministry increases the amount of medicines and medical supplies being sent to Venezuela from 100 to 300 tons,
00:10Brazilians remember the time during the COVID-19 pandemic when Venezuela sent oxygen to Manaus.
00:16Our correspondent Brian Meir has more.
00:19This weekend, the Brazilian government's first shipment of 40 tons of hemodialysis medicine and supplies arrived in Venezuela
00:26in response to the U.S. government's bombing of the nation's largest nephrology supply center
00:32during its kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and First Lady Celia.
00:41We are doing this for humanitarian reasons, and I would like to remind everyone that at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic,
00:47when the hospital system in Manaus collapsed due to lack of oxygen because of the federal government,
00:54at that time responsible crisis management,
00:56Venezuela sent 130,000 cubic meters of oxygen to the city to save Brazilian lives.
01:04During the pandemic in 2021, then-President Jair Bolsonaro and his cronies politicized oxygen delivery to Manaus
01:12by sending it up a dirt highway from Porto Velho during rainy season,
01:16instead of airlifting it to promote a project supported by his agribusiness,
01:20to pave the highway.
01:22Oxygen ran out, ventilators stopped running, killing dozens and hundreds of prematurely born babies had to be airlifted to other states.
01:29That's when Nicolas Maduro stepped in.
01:31We were desperate and calling everyone we knew to try to figure out what was happening.
01:38Everyone was panicking and crying, so there was this international mobilization and we were overjoyed when we saw the shocks coming up Highway 174,
01:52which connects Manaus to Venezuela.
01:53It brought happiness and celebrations because we knew no more people were going to die because of lack of oxygen.
02:00After initially promising 100 tons of supplies, the Brazilian government says it will increase the shipment to 300 tons.
02:08Brian Meir, Telesur, Recife.
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