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.
The Indian vaccine Covishield, the delivery of which to Ukraine was negotiated by Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov, will arrive at Boryspil airport in the morning of February 23, Deputy Head of the President’s Office of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko has said.
“Tomorrow morning the vaccine will arrive. This is information from the Ministry of Health and information from a logistics company. In the morning tomorrow the plane will be in Boryspil. This is the first batch that will be next. The next delivery is within a week or ten days, as I understand it,” Tymoshenko said in the Svoboda Slova (Freedom of Speech) program on the ICTV television channel on the evening of Monday, February 22.
He also said “the controversies that were in different studios can already be finished,” answering the question of the presenter “What is the optimism of the deputy head of the President’s Office based on that the vaccine will really arrive, given that the supplies of AstroZeneca and Phizer, which should to be in Ukraine on February 15 and 16, are they delaying?”
According to Tymoshenko, as soon as the plane arrives, the first batch of vaccine will be delivered to a logistics warehouse, from which it will be delivered to some regions on the same day, and then the first stage of vaccination with mobile groups starts. As reported, doctors who work with patients with coronavirus (COVID-19) will be the first to be vaccinated.
