Ukraine is not considering the supply of Johnson & Johnson’s anti-COVID vaccine, negotiations with the company are not underway, Deputy Minister of Health, Chief Sanitary Doctor Ihor Kuzin said.
“Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine supply is not currently being considered and supply negotiations are currently not held,” he told reporters on Monday.
Kuzin said that the vaccine manufacturer “is not proactively communicating.”
“The communication mechanisms that we have used have so far been ineffective,” he said.
As reported, in July 2021, Ukraine registered a vector vaccine against COVID-19 Janssen manufactured by Johnson & Johnson. One dose of Janssen vaccine is sufficient for a complete immunization. It requires a storage temperature of +2 to +8 degrees Celsius.
Earlier, 500 doses of Janssen vaccine were delivered to Ukraine in compliance with the procedure for importing unregistered medicines for vaccination of employees of a private company, which paid its cost, organized delivery and ensured compliance with the temperature regime. Employees of this company work in Alaska in the fishing industry and had to be vaccinated with a U.S.-certified vaccine in order to be allowed into this country.
Almost 88.2% of Ukrainian teachers have already received one dose of the vaccine against the COVID-19 coronavirus infection, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine said.
“As of today, October 25, 2021, at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccination was received by 88.2% of employees of general secondary education institutions, almost 400,000 teachers across the country were vaccinated with two doses,” the Ministry of Education said.
It is reported, that the highest level of vaccination is demonstrated by: Mykolaiv region – 98%, Kyiv region – 95.5%, Kharkiv region – 94.6%, Donetsk region – 92.7%, Khmelnytsky region – 91.6% (full and incomplete vaccination cycle). At the same time, the vaccination threshold of 80% of school workers has not been reached only in Rivne region.
The ministry reports that 8,000 schools are on vacation since October 25. In the regions caught in “red” zones of epidemic danger, there are schools on vacation or distance learning that have not reached the vaccination rate of 100%. In Odesa region there are 149 schools, in Donetsk region – 93, in Zaporizhia region – 47.
As of October 23, sugar production in Ukraine amounted to 562,300 tonnes (more by 216,700 tonnes over the period of October 11-23), in general, 4.20 million tonnes of sugar beets were processed (more by 1.53 million tonnes over the week).
According to a report on the website of the Ukrtsukor National Association of Sugar Producers on Monday, during the specified period, sugar refining was started by Tsukoragroprom LLC (Kyiv), part of the Astarta agricultural holding, at facilities of Hlobyne sugar refinery (Hlobyne, Poltava region).
Thus, to date, sugar beet processing is carried out by 29 out of 33 factories that have planned to produce sugar in the current marketing year (September-August).
According to the data on the website of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, as of October 23, Ukrainian agrarians harvested 6.23 million tonnes of sugar beet (59% of the forecast) with a yield of 465.2 centners/ha.
As reported, the current season of sugar beet processing started in the country on August 21.
Moldovan state company Energocom has announced a series of tenders to buy natural gas with delivery from the border with Ukraine (Oleksiyivka) or Romania (Ungheni).
The gas purchases are being made for Moldova due to the “exceptional situation,” the company said on its website.
“Following the National Commission for Exceptional Situations of October 13, 2021, the state of alert was announced regarding the natural gas sector. Energocom, a company 100% owned by the State of Moldova, is preparing to purchase natural gas to be supplied at Moldovan border from Ukraine and/or Romania,” the company said.
Tenders will be held for various periods, to begin with short-term gas purchases of 5 million cubic meters and potentially more for the balance of October, Energocom said.
Gas suppliers must have “a proven record of reliable and professional activity (gas supply license in at least one EU/Energy Community country and >0.3 bcm of gas trading in 2020), the company said.
The first tender to purchase 1 mcm of gas was announced on October 23. Prepayment will be issued immediately, but SWIFT transfer to foreign entities can only be carried out on Monday, October 25, Energocom said.
“Considering the emergency situation, the Public Property Agency of Moldova, the sole shareholder of Energocom, will issue a comfort letter to the selected suppliers to confirm that payments will be duly made,” the company said.
The Energy Community Secretariat held a meeting with a delegation from Moldova to discuss problems with gas supplies to the country.
The Kyiv analytical center Experts Club hosted the first of a series of events dedicated to the popularization of Ukrainian wine and the prospects for the development of the Ukrainian wine industry, as well as the analysis of the products of the best producers of domestic wine. The event was held with the participation and support of the Odesa National Technological University and the Ukrsadvinprom association.
During the meeting, the participants heard the report of the Doctor of Agricultural Science, Professor of the Odesa National Technological University Natalia Kameneva on the topic “Sensory analysis – an innovative tool for the development of the wine sector.”
During the presentation, the results of the activities of the wine industry in 2020 were presented. So, last year, Ukraine exported 14.4 million liters of wine, which is twice as much as in 2019, while the import of wine to Ukraine in 2020 increased by 22% compared to 2019.
In addition, Natalia Kameneva presented a scientific and educational laboratory for sensory analysis of wines, opened at the National Academy of Food Technologies and successfully accredited in accordance with international quality standard ISO 17025: 2019.
“Today the laboratory meets all requirements and standards, it was created for sensory analysis of food products in accordance with international standards, training and education of experts in sensory analysis, research of consumer preferences in the field of sensory analysis of food products,” he scientist explained.
The founder of the Experts Club, Maksim Urakin, stressed that the center is ready to become a platform for the popularization of Ukrainian wines.
“I believe that many varieties of Ukrainian wine remain underestimated in the consumer market. Within the framework of this project, we will try to change the situation,” he said.
The head of the Ukrsadvinprom association, in turn, added that state support for domestic winegrowers and winemakers is still at a low level, which leads to the filling of the market with imported wines, including low-quality ones.
“We have the largest association in the country, which includes 80% of Ukrainian wine producers, we would like the state to systematically work on programs to support Ukrainian producers, both the consumer and the budget will benefit from this,” Volodymyr Pechko said.
Also, within the framework of the meeting, an organoleptic analysis of the quality of eight samples of leading Ukrainian wine producers was carried out. The wines of such Ukrainian producers took part in the tasting: SHABO, Artwinery (Artemivsk Champagne Factory), Prince Trubetskoi Winery, Frumushika, Beykush winery, Villa Tinta, Stakhovsky Wines, Leleka wines.
The event was held in partnership with the leading international tasting competition Odessa Wine Week. The next Odessa Wine Week festival will be held in Odesa from May 24 to May 29, 2022.
EXPERTS_CLUB, UKRSADVINPROM, URAKIN, WINE, WINE_TASTING, КАМЕНЕВА, ПЕЧКО
The processing of agricultural crops using unmanned aerial vehicles is the most promising direction in the Ukrainian agricultural machinery industry, the Astarta agricultural holding has begun experimental implementation of this type of aviation this year, CEO of AgriChain, which is part of Astarta, Natalia Bohacheva has said.
“Drones are the most promising direction in Ukraine today. We use the drone scouting. These are video inspections and panoramic images of fields at different heights, at different angles with satellite monitoring,” she told Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the Ukraine CFO Forum in Kyiv held last week.
According to her, drones are most effective in assessing the state of crops and promptly responding to emerging risks. In addition, this aircraft technology allows pre-harvest drying of grain crops with greater efficiency than using wheeled vehicles. This is especially pronounced during desiccation of rapeseed, which can be significantly damaged by the bottom of the vehicles processing it.
Bohacheva said that pilot schemes for processing crops with drones were introduced at a number of enterprises of the agricultural holding this year, mainly for rapeseed.
“I myself was a huge skeptic of drone treatments, especially in terms of refueling and charging, but the case with desiccation confirmed their effectiveness,” the head of AgriChain said.
AgriChain is a product company that develops solutions for the AgTech market, founded in 2016 by the Astarta agricultural holding.
According to the unified public register of legal entities and sole proprietors, 99.8% of the charter capital of Agri Chain LLC belongs to Astarta CEO Viktor Ivanchyk through Astarta-Kyiv LLC.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine.
