Ukraine has registered 5,181 new cases of COVID-19, 11,310 recoveries, and 128 deaths in the past 24 hours, Ukrainian Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said.
“Ukraine recorded 5,181 new COVID-19 cases on January 29, 2021. In particular, the virus was contracted by 218 children and 212 medical workers. Over the past day, 1,916 persons have been hospitalized, 128 have died, and 11,310 have recovered,” Stepanov said on Facebook.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 1,211,593 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Ukraine; 22,479 of them have died and 1,003,341 have recovered to date.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says that Ukraine is currently signing or has already signed contracts for more than 30 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
“There will be enough vaccines for everyone this year. Today, we have contracts for more than 30 million vaccines that have actually been signed and are being signed,” Shmyhal said on the air of ICTV channel on Monday evening, January 25.
The prime minister also said that all the queues according to the national vaccination plan will be observed, and the vaccination itself will start in February.
“In the near future, Ukraine will receive one million doses of vaccine. Until the end of January, we expect the amount of COVAX vaccine […] there will be the first delivery of COVAX vaccine in the amount of 200,000 doses or more, in order to start emergency immediate vaccination,” Shmyhal said.
The Synevo laboratory, part of the Swedish holding Medicover, has launched PCR tests that detect British and South African coronavirus (COVID-19) strains, including their currently known mutations.
According to Synevo’s press release, new PCR tests are carried out on new generation equipment and reagents from the U.S. company Abbott.
Investments in equipment for testing (two analyzers) amounted to more than EUR 200,000.
The tests detect the virus at the earliest stages of the disease, when the virus cells are still very little in the body, while other test systems will still give false negative results, although the person is already sick.
According to Synevo Development Director Mykola Butenko, new PCR tests allow detecting British and South African COVID-19 strains with the same accuracy as the previous COVID-19 strains.
In addition, new PCR tests, in addition to detecting COVID-19, can determine the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 on the body and the likely stage of the disease.
“We have received official confirmation from the head office of Abbott in the United States that new PCR tests detect two new strains of coronavirus: British and South African. These results were obtained by Abbott in clinical trials, and the reagents have already received international FDA accreditation,” Butenko said in a press release.
Synevo said that Abbott’s PCR tests are one of the most reliable in the world, their sensitivity is only 100 copies per 1 ml of biomaterial, while the sensitivity of other PCR tests for COVID-19 available on the Ukrainian market, from 400 copies and higher. This sensitivity allows almost completely eliminate false negative results.
Synevo is Ukraine’s largest network of medical laboratories, a division of the Swedish medical holding Medicover. The Synevo network consists of more than 300 laboratory centers operating in more than 115 cities throughout Ukraine, as well as seven laboratories in which more than 1,500 types of tests are performed.
Only 39% of Ukrainian citizens have expressed readiness to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus if such a vaccine becomes available at local pharmacies, and 56% are not ready to do so, according to the results of a public opinion survey carried out by the Rating Sociological Group between January 14 and January 16, 2021.
Forty-three percent of respondents said they will be ready to be vaccinated if it is free of charge, and 52% of those polled expressed the opposite opinion. The majority of those who oppose vaccination are people from the age group between 30 and 49, women, residents of small towns, and those who are not afraid of contracting the disease, the poll findings show.
By comparison, 55% of Ukrainians supported free vaccination in November 2020. Meanwhile, the number of those who are ready to pay for the vaccine has slightly grown.
Fifty-one percent of respondents backed the strengthening of quarantine measures, including the lockdown, from January 8 to January 24, down from 56% in December, and 46% of those polled disapproved of the aforementioned steps.
At the same time, 40% of respondents believe that the lockdown will help curb the spread of the disease (52% in December), and 55% took the opposite view. One-third of those who support the lockdown said they do not consider it to be effective.
Sixteen percent of respondents said they had had COVID-19 or were suffering from it at the moment, 80% of those polled said they had not had COVID-19, and 4% could not answer the question.
As compared with previous such surveys, the latest poll shows that the respondents were considerably less worried by the fact that they themselves or their relatives might contract the virus. This figure stands at 40% in January, down from 57% in November. Seventy-eight percent of respondents to the latest survey expressed concern that their relatives and friends might contract the disease, as compared to 87% in November. The respondents who expressed the greatest concern on this matter were the elderly and women.
The poll, using the Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview method, took place between January 14 and January 16 and surveyed 1,600 respondents aged 18 and up.
The state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine negotiated the purchase of a vaccine against COVID-19 with India’s Serum Institute, MP from the Holos faction Oleksandra Ustinova has said with reference to SOE Medical Procurement of Ukraine. According to the response of the SOE to her request, the Ministry of Health has suspended negotiations with the manufacturer.
“Negotiations with manufacturers or potential suppliers of vaccines have been suspended due to the failure to authorize SOE Medical Procurement of Ukraine to act as the recipient of budgetary funds, the lack of appropriations in 2021 for the purchase of vaccines for SOE Medical Procurement of Ukraine and the lack of an approved additional amount of vaccine for the purchase,” MP said.
Ustinova said that the vaccine from Serum Institute was procured for the COVAX global initiative.
In addition, according to her, the cost of a dose of the vaccine from the manufacturer Sinovac, the supply agreement for which was signed by Ukraine, is six times higher than the cost of the Indian vaccine.
Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. specializes in the production of immunobiological preparations, among which, in particular, vaccines against poliomyelitis, measles, hepatitis B, BCG vaccine against tuberculosis, as well as DPT vaccine against whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus.
Earlier, preparations for immunoprophylaxis produced by Serum II were supplied to Ukraine, in particular, the DPT vaccine, and Hib vaccine to prevent Haemophilus influenzae type b. In 2018, the State Service of Ukraine for Medicines and Drug Control imposed a temporary ban on the DTP Serum II series vaccines due to reports of a fatal case following the use of these series. However, later the ban was lifted on the basis of a conclusion of the regional rapid response group (in Ternopil region) regarding the absence of a causal relationship between the death and immunization.
The Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies (Kyiv) plans to register in Ukraine a vaccine against coronavirus (COVID-19) disease produced by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech until February 5, after the vaccine is registered in Brazil, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies Valeriy Pechayev said at a press conference held at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.
“The company received confirmation from the Health Ministry that when registering a vaccine in Brazil, Ukraine will register the vaccine as well. From January 25, Brazil will start immunization with the Sinovac vaccine, they should register the vaccine by January 25. As soon as registration in Brazil is completed, we will submit documents to the State Expert Center. I think we will register the vaccine before February 1-5,” he said.
Pechayev said that Lekhim received from Sinovac a quota of 5 million doses of vaccines for sale in Ukraine in the first half of 2021, of which 1.913 million doses are planned to be purchased by the Health Ministry.
“Until February 15, Lekhim is receiving applications from enterprises for the supply of vaccines. Lekhim will check customers for compliance with the cool chain. The price for customers will be UAH 504 per one dose of vaccine. The profitability of the deal for Lekhim is 4-5%,” he said.
In turn, Director of the Department for Development of the Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies Mykhailo Rensky said that it is difficult to talk about the timing of vaccine supply, since they are prescribed only for a contract with the Health Ministry.
According to Head of the National Technical Group of Experts on Immunoprophylaxis, pediatric immunologist Fedir Lapiy, as clinical studies in Brazil have shown, the effectiveness of the vaccine to prevent mortality was 100%.
Lapiy said that there is no generalized report on clinical trials for any of the COVID-19 vaccines. “After clinical studies, manufacturers take data from different countries and combine them. There is no such data from any manufacturer yet,” he said.
At the same time, Lapiy said that it is impossible to assess the effectiveness of the Russian vaccine against COVID-19, since it failed the third phase of clinical trials.
Sinovac Biotech is a Chinese vaccine producing company founded in Beijing in 2001 with a capacity of 300 to 500 million doses of six types of vaccines for humans and animals per year. Sinovac’s main products are vaccines against hepatitis A (prequalified by the WHO) and B, influenza, mumps, chickenpox, which are registered and approved for vaccination in 34 countries around the world.
The Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies was founded in 1992. It includes three enterprises: PJSC Technolog (Uman) (at the final stage of obtaining WHO prequalification), JSC Lekhim-Kharkiv (Kharkiv) and the management company JSC Lekhim (Kyiv).
CoronaVac is an inactivated vaccine. It uses a traditional vaccine mechanism in which a non-living virus that cannot replicate in human cells is used to activate the immune system. Phase 3 trials of the Chinese vaccine have already taken place in Brazil and Indonesia. Tests are ongoing in Turkey and Chile.
