Founder and owner of the Serum Institute of India, Cyrus Poonawalla, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, assured that Ukraine will be among the priority countries that will receive the contracted vaccine as soon as the Indian government restores its export.
CoviShield company’s vaccine against coronavirus disease was the first that Ukraine received for vaccinations. The owner of the Serum Institute noted that India had already supplied Ukraine with half a million doses of the vaccine, the website of the President’s Office reported on Friday.
In turn, Zelensky invited Poonawalla to explore the possibilities of cooperation between his company and Ukrainian partners in order to jointly develop and produce medicines, medical products and vaccines in Ukraine, including those from COVID-19.
As reported, the incidence rate of COVID-19 in India has led to delays in the supply of up to 90 million doses of vaccines from that country. The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, is a key supplier of vaccines to the international COVAX vaccine distribution program.
Ukraine has overcome the third wave of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov has said.
“Finally, I can state that we have overcome the third wave of the pandemic. From tomorrow, there will not be a single region with a ‘red’ level of epidemic danger in Ukraine,” he said on his Facebook page.
Stepanov said that, as planned, on Friday there will be a meeting of the State Commission on Environmental Safety, Manmade Disaster and Emergency Response, which can cancel the “red” level of epidemic danger in Sumy region.
The minister said that the third wave of COVID-19 claimed more lives compared to the first two, and during this period the healthcare system worked with tension, there was not enough oxygen in medical institutions.
“The late March and the early April were the hardest. The capacities at Lviv Chemical Plant [supplying medical institutions with oxygen] were overloaded and at some point some of the production capacities stopped. However, we managed to restore them overnight. We did not leave a single person without oxygen. For example, one of the city hospitals in Kyiv, before the pandemic, needed 3 tonnes of oxygen per month, and during the third wave – 5.5 tonnes per day,” he said.
According to Stepanov, at the peak of the epidemic, there were 44,000 patients in hospitals on oxygen therapy; while a year earlier there were 3,500 beds with oxygen in Ukraine.
At the same time, the minister recalled the need for further compliance with anti-epidemic measures.
“No ‘barbecue’ costs life and health. Therefore, take care of yourself, because the virus is just waiting for you to take off the mask,” the minister said.
Ukraine has recorded 2,472 new cases of COVID-19, some 7,815 recoveries and 166 related deaths over the past 24 hours, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said.
“Ukraine has registered 2,472 new daily cases of the coronavirus infection as of May 4, 2021, including 122 children and 22 medical workers. Also, 1,591 people have been admitted to hospitals. Medics have recorded 166 fatalities and 7,815 recoveries over the past day,” Stepanov said on Facebook on Tuesday morning.
The day before, on May 3, some 2,758 new cases of COVID-19 infection were recorded, on May 2, some 5,094 new cases were recorded, on May 1, some 8,549 new coronavirus infections were reported, on April 30, some 10,072 new cases of COVID-19 infection were recorded.
Since the pandemic began, Ukraine has recorded a total of 2,088,410 cases of COVID-19, including 44,916 deaths and 1,689,630 recoveries.
Over the past day, the largest number of confirmed cases was registered in Donetsk (324), Cherkasy (253), Dnipropetrovsk (220), Kharkiv (191) and Odesa (168) regions.
A total of 756,022 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 since the vaccination campaign started in Ukraine, among them 919 people on May 3.
The Adonis medical group intends to preserve and develop the direction associated with medical tourism, the group’s development director Vitaliy Hyrin has said.
“This is a very promising and for me this is the most interesting direction in business development. We work with platforms and agencies. We have a representative office in various countries. This is a large area of our business,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to Hyrin, Adonis’ revenues from medical tourism prior to the COVID-19 epidemic accounted for about a third of the group’s total income.
“At the times prior to COVID-19 pandemic, it was about 35%. When COVID-19 pandemic began, we tried to maintain this direction, pushing it at the expense of other businesses,” he said.
Vaccination against COVID-19 with the vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech (trade name Comirnaty) will begin from Kyiv region on April 18, its starts throughout Ukraine on April 19, said chief sanitary doctor, Deputy Minister of Health Viktor Liashko.
“This vaccine will first of all be used to vaccinate personnel and residents of nursing homes, then employees of the State Emergency Service and border guards,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.
Liashko explained that the vaccines will be distributed in 1,170 doses in each of the regions and the city of Kyiv. Together with them, dilution bank, syringes and boxes for the safe disposal of medical waste will be delivered.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has allocated an additional UAH 6.5 billion for the purchase of vaccines against COVID-19, the Ministry of Finance said.
“On April 14, a government resolution was adopted on an additional direction from the state budget of funds in the amount of UAH 6.5 billion for the purchase of vaccines against acute respiratory disease COVID-19. This decision was agreed on the same day by the Verkhovna Rada budget committee,” the statement said.
As the ministry noted, taking into account the corresponding expenses in the past year, the total amount of state budget expenditures for the purchase of vaccines is UAH 11.4 billion.
The Ministry of Finance also indicated that it is planned to vaccinate 24 million people, or 70% of the adult population, by the end of 2021. However, this requires almost 6 million vaccinations every month from May to the end of the year (on average, over 250,000 vaccinations per day), which the Ministry of Finance considers a challenge for the Ministry of Health in the context of timely procurement and delivery to Ukraine, as well as organization of vaccination.
“For this, it is necessary to ensure the receipt of almost 48 million doses of vaccines, taking into account 8 million doses that should be received free of charge under the COVAX mechanism,” the ministry said.
