Ukraine will receive a part of the vaccines from the United States through the COVAX program, which will be transferred as part of the U.S. plans to purchase and transport 500 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine press service said. “About a month ago President [Joe] Biden announced that he will purchase another 500 million additional doses of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines to contribute to Covax, which is the facility that is sharing these vaccines around the world, including with Ukraine,” the embassy said in the statement.
As noted, the USAID agency located in Ukraine will set up distribution networks and “cold chain” networks that allow the vaccine to be fully ready to go.
“The United States is the largest global contributor to the Covax Facility. We have given over $4 billion to that facility to help distribute vaccines around the world,” the embassy’s press office said.
At the same time, the U.S. government plans to continue to cooperate with Ukraine and other countries to reduce the level of coronavirus (COVID-19) disease in the world.
The vaccine produced by AstraZeneca may be delivered to Ukraine next week, Chief State Sanitary Doctor Viktor Liashko said.
“We are waiting for the Pfizer vaccine. Perhaps the first will be the AstraZeneca vaccine. We will receive two products next week. There are questions about the Pfizer vaccine, which we receive as part of the COVAX initiative, which is supplied to Ukraine for free,” Liashko said on the air of the Right to Power (Pravo na Vladu) program on 1+1 TV channel on Thursday night.
He noted that bureaucratic processes are currently underway.
Liashko said that vaccines would be used in Ukraine after their registration.
According to the Chief State Sanitary Doctor, Ukraine has agreed on a contract for the supply of 12 million doses of vaccines produced by AstraZeneca and Novavax. The drugs will be shipped from India, where they are manufactured at the facilities of the Serum Institute.
Also, through the COVAX mechanism, Ukraine should receive from 2.2 million to 3.7 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first half of the year.
