The Health Ministry of Ukraine could design an action plan to resume national production of immunobiological preparations and approve it by the end of 2018. According to the draft resolution of the government on the approval of the strategy for the development of the National Program for Immunological Prophylaxis and Protection of the Population from Vaccine-Controlled Infections until 2022 and the plan for its implementation, posted on the website of the Health Ministry, proposals for the resumption of production can be developed and approved in the third quarter.
Together with the Health Ministry, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, the Finance Ministry, the National Academy of Medical Sciences will also be involved in the designing of the plan.
If the strategy and the plan for its implementation are adopted this year, the ministry will also audit the legislation on registration and re-registration of immunobiological preparations and in the first quarter of 2019, following the audit, will prepare changes to the relevant procedures and submit them for approval by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
In addition, in 2018, the issue of limiting the access of unvaccinated children (in accordance with the vaccination schedule) to groups of children will be resolved, and the vaccination will be revised to optimize the vaccination calendar, storage, transportation and registration of immunobiological preparations.
The plan provides for the improvement of the system for the procurement of serums, antitoxins, introduction of incentives for health workers for increasing the level of vaccination, as well as a number of measures to build awareness of the value of immunization among the population and health workers, and the improvement of the surveillance system for vaccine-preventable infections.
Two million patients have signed declarations with doctors over the first month of the campaign for choosing a primary care physician, titled “Doctor for Each Family,” the press service of the Ukrainian Health Ministry has reported. The most active are patients from Kharkiv region, where 230,600 declarations were signed, Kyiv region (225,000), Vinnytsia region (over 186,000), as well as Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions (177,700 and 168,000 respectively).
A total of 1,245 medical institutions providing primary health care have currently been connected to the e-health system. As many as 19,000 doctors can sign declarations with patients. A thousand doctors joined the system last week. According to the report, 73% of patients have already signed declarations with primary care physicians, 15% with therapists, and 12% with pediatricians. Ukrainians at the age of 40-64 years are most actively choosing doctors.
