In February 2021, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) considered about 15,000 passenger requests for refunds for canceled flights in connection with COVID-19 and issued a refund in the amount of $2.5 million, the press service of the company said on Wednesday.
It is noted that in just 11 months during the pandemic from April 2020 to February 2021 inclusively, UIA returned more than $29 million to passengers.
In addition, the airline reminds that passengers of canceled flights also have options to choose from: free ticket reissuance; a promotional code for the amount of the cost of an unused ticket, valid for two years from the date of its issue.
“UIA once again emphasizes its readiness for dialogue with its passengers and sincerely hopes for understanding. The airline is doing everything possible to process every request as soon as possible,” the message says.
The Ministry of Health on Tuesday will hold a conference call with the regions to increase the speed of vaccination against coronavirus (COVID-19) disease, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said during a press briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.
“Since the beginning of the vaccination campaign, 19,118 people have been inoculated. I am not satisfied with these numbers, I set a different task for the speed of vaccination. By the end of the previous week, we had to reach 10,000 people per day and increase this number. We reached a little more than 2,000-3,000 vaccinations per day. Today we will hold an appropriate conference call, which will be attended by the heads of the Regional State Administrations, the leadership of the President’s Office, and directorates of health departments that coordinate vaccinations locally,” he said.
In addition, the minister noted that 185 cases of side effects from vaccination were recorded in Ukraine.
“As of today, out of almost 20,000 vaccinations, only 185 reports of side effects from immunization have been recorded. No serious side effects from vaccination have been recorded in Ukraine. Only one case required medical supervision, when a person had a fever for two days after vaccination,” he said.
Stepanov also said that as of March 9, some 190,230 people had already signed up for the vaccination waiting list.
Ukraine is launching its COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Wednesday, Ukrainian Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said.
“The COVID-19 vaccination campaign is starting today [on February 24]. The first vaccine [shipments] were sent to the regions at 7:00 a.m. I have set an objective to carry out the first stage of vaccination within a short period of time,” Stepanov said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Ukraine has enough vaccine doses for the first and second stages of the campaign, the minister said.
“We are expecting supplies through the COVAX initiative of more than 100,000 doses from the Pfizer company, around two million doses from Sinovac, 1.5 million doses from AstraZeneca, another four million doses or so from Serum Institute under COVAX, a contract for ten million doses from Novavax has already been signed, and we plan to sign a contract for another five million doses in the near future,” Stepanov said.
This amount of vaccine doses is more than enough for a full-fledged vaccination drive this year, he said.
“Apart from that, we are going to sign more contracts and already have relevant agreements,” Stepanov said.
Stepanov also said that he had visited the Bharat Biotech enterprise, which has developed a COVID-19 vaccine, during his visit to India.
“The vaccine has undergone the three phases of clinical trials, with the final stage involving more than 25,000 volunteers. The final results of the phase 3 trials are expected to become available within the next ten days. Scientists’ tentative conclusions are optimistic – the vaccine is effective and safe,” the minister said.
“During the negotiations with the company, we reached an agreement confirming the mutual readiness of the producer and Ukraine to take part in clinical trials of a new development, which is a vaccine in the form of nasal spray or drops. They are starting the phase 1 trials, while the phase 2 and phase 3 trials may be conducted partly in Ukraine. The clinical trials should be completed before September-October. Conducting such trials in Ukraine will give us priority access to the vaccine if its efficacy is proven,” Stepanov said.
The State Expert Center of the Ukrainian Health Ministry, in turn, has announced that it finished reviewing the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines for the novel coronavirus on February 22.
President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen recalled the difficulties with the launch of the production of vaccines against COVID-19.
“We all underestimated the difficulty for the industry of ramping up a complex mass vaccine production programme from nothing. I wish I had known that last autumn. I would still have been very pleased about the researchers coming up with the vaccine so much faster than predicted, but I would have warned that it could take several more months before it was available in large quantities,” she said in an interview with Die Zeit on Thursday.
Von der Leyen noted that delays in the terms of vaccinations are due to the EU’s careful approach to the vaccine registration process.
She stressed that at first, manufacturers could not fulfill large orders that were formed by different countries.
“Larger initial orders would have been impossible to honour – even if we had paid out billions extra for this. The current bottlenecks are due to the fact that producing a vaccine is extremely complicated and the start is often shaky. There is a limited supply of raw materials, supply chains for the completely new mRNA technology need to be established and, in addition, demand for these substances from all corners of the globe is extremely high,” Von der Leyen said.
She recalled that in early January, European countries faced a shortage of vaccines, so they increased their orders.
As reported, Minister of Health of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov left for to India to conduct direct negotiations with manufacturers on additional volumes of Oxford/AstraZeneca and NovaVax vaccines in 2021-2022 to the already contracted 12 million doses.
Minister of Health of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov has left from Boryspil Airport to India to conduct direct negotiations with manufacturers on additional volumes of Oxford/AstraZeneca and NovaVax vaccines in 2021-2022.
“Kyiv-Dubai-Delhi-Pune. I will be at my destination place in Pune in 17 hours. We are preparing for negotiations with the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world – Serum Institute of India,” Stepanov wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday evening.
According to him, the pandemic will be a global problem for the next several years.
“We understand that it is necessary to contract additional volumes now,” the minister said.
“The main task is to reach the already contracted 12 million doses, to reach direct agreements for the supply of additional volumes of Oxford/AstraZeneca and NovaVax vaccines in 2021-2022 directly with the manufacturer,” Stepanov emphasized.
He also noted that he will personally control the dispatch of the first batch. “The importance of the cargo obliges,” the head of the department added.
Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against coronavirus (COVID-19) has been submitted for registration in Ukraine under the obligation for emergency medical use.
According to the Center for Public Health website, an application for registration was submitted to the State Expert Center of the Health Ministry on Monday, February 15.
On the same day, WHO approved the AstraZeneca emergency vaccine and gave the green light for use of this vaccine worldwide through the COVAX initiative. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has previously been approved for emergency use in the UK, European Union and India.
The vaccine will be purchased for public funds directly from manufacturers. It is expected that at least 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be supplied to Ukraine in February 2021.
As reported, Ukraine received information from COVAX on the supply of vaccines from the manufacturer Oxford/AstraZeneca in the amount of 2.2 to 3.7 million doses in the first or second quarter of 2021.
