The first 2 million doses of Moderna vaccine against the COVID-19 coronavirus, donated by the United States of America on the COVAX initiative, have arrived in Ukraine, UNICEF has reported.
“The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) delivered today 2,000,040 doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the American company Moderna, to Ukraine. This batch of vaccines is donated by the U.S. Government through the global COVAX Facility,” the message reads.
As noted, this batch of COVID vaccine will be used to do vaccinations by mobile teams of organized and professional groups of the previous stages of vaccination.
“Our main goal is to protect as many Ukrainians against COVID-19 as possible. We are thankful to partners who stand with us. We are now accelerating vaccination roll-out, so everyone could have access to vaccines. I urge all Ukrainians who not yet got their shots to come and get vaccinated in the mass vaccination centers to protect their health,” said Viktor Liashko, Minister of Health of Ukraine
It is noted that Moderna is an mRNA vaccine. It requires special storage and transportation, which is provided by the United States Agency for International Development USAID.
The Ministry of Health of Ukraine allowed to store the undiluted vaccine against COVID-19 Comirnaty produced by Pfizer-BioNTech at temperatures from + 2°C to + 8°C for a month instead of five days, the ministry said on its official website.
The Ministry of Health received the corresponding letter from Pfizer Export B.V. with a request to review the requirements for the cold chain of the Comirnaty vaccine on June 24, 2021. The company turned to regulators after a series of new studies.
The European Medicines Agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the relevant authorities of other countries have also changed the storage requirements for the vaccine.
Ukraine has registered a vaccine against coronavirus (COVID-19) Janssen manufactured by Johnson & Johnson.
According to the Center for Public Health and the Health Ministry, the vaccine was registered for emergency medical use on July 2.
At the same time, it is specified that one dose of Janssen vaccine is sufficient for complete immunization.
The vaccine is approved for emergency use by WHO. The United States, Great Britain, the European Union, Switzerland, Canada and other countries have also given permission to use it.
This is a vector vaccine developed by Janssen, owned by Johnson&Johnson. It requires a storage temperature from minus two to plus eight degrees Celsius.
The Lekhim Group of Companies plans to supply the first 500,000 doses of the Chinese vaccine against coronavirus (COVID-19) CoronaVac produced by Sinovac and purchased by the British agency Crown Agents at the expense of the national budget.
The company told Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday, the first delivery under this contract is expected on July 5.
In addition, the company said that on July 29, Lekhim carried out the last delivery of this vaccine under a contract with state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine.
As reported, Lekhim supplied 1.9 million doses of CoronaVac vaccine to Ukraine under a contract with the Health Ministry.
The contract with Crown Agents provides for the delivery of 7.7 million doses of this vaccine to the country.
The Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac will supply another 5.325 million doses of Coronavac vaccine against COVID-19 to Ukraine, said chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine Ihor Kuzin.
“Today we have signed commitments on Sinovac and it is planned that another 5.325 million doses of vaccine will be purchased by Crown Agents,” he said on Wednesday during an online discussion entitled “Why Ukrainians don’t want to be vaccinated.”
Kuzin said additional supplies of Coronavac vaccine are expected in July.
“We expect that all these volumes should come to Ukraine during July,” he said.
UNICEF will deliver 473,850 doses of Pfizer BioNTech vaccine to Ukraine by the end of next week as part of the COVAX initiative.
According to a UNICEF press release, the first 117,000 doses of this shipment arrived in Ukraine on Tuesday.
Earlier, within the framework of COVAX, 590,850 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 1.0728 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine were delivered to Ukraine.
The COVAX Initiative aims to ensure fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for every country in the world. Ukraine receives all vaccines within the framework of COVAX free of charge.
On behalf of COVAX, UNICEF purchases and supplies only those COVID-19 vaccines that meet WHO’s safety and efficacy criteria.
COVAX is coordinated by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), WHO and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI). UNICEF works with manufacturers and procurement and logistics partners for COVID-19 vaccines.
Within the framework of COVAX, by the end of 2021, Ukraine should receive enough vaccines from various manufacturers to protect up to 20% of the population from COVID.
