Ukraine has agreed with the Indian manufacturer Serum Institute to increase the supply of vaccines against coronavirus (COVID-19) disease to 15 million doses, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov has said.
“During negotiations with the owner of the Serum Institute, Mr. Cyrus Poonawalla, an agreement was reached to increase the supply from 10 million to 15 million doses of vaccine,” he said at a briefing on Tuesday.
Stepanov also said that “there is a proposal from the Chinese company Sinovac.”
“We have reached an agreement with them to increase supplies and additional contracting,” he said.
Stepanov said that Ukraine currently has contacts for the supply of 42 million doses, but intends to increase the agreement to 48 million doses in 2021, which will allow 70% of the adult population to be vaccinated.
Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov welcomes the import of vaccines to the private market, but spoke about the nuances.
“In order to import a vaccine, it must first be registered. We have now adopted a fast registration regime for emergency use. We welcome the import of vaccines by any business to the private market,” Stepanov said on the air on the Ukraine24 TV channel.
According to him, in the near future due to the frenzied demand for vaccines in the private market, some countries prohibit the export of their vaccines from the territory where their production is located, despite the concluded contracts and paid funds.
“Therefore, they are sold exclusively to states. We are in constant communication with all manufacturers of vaccines, asking about the possibility of their appearance on the private market,” Stepanov said.
The minister also explained the possibility of bringing Cuban vaccine against COVID-19 to Ukraine.
“We must first look at the documents in order to draw conclusions,” Stepanov said.
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.
Vaccines against COVID-19 from four companies will arrive in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
“We have agreed to supply vaccines to Ukraine from Pfizer, Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Novavax companies. The first stage of vaccination will begin this month. Our doctors, the military and the National Guard will be the first to receive the vaccine,” Zelensky said at the opening of the “Ukraine 30. Coronavirus: Challenges and Responses” Forum on Monday.
At the same time, the president said that having already resolved the issue of vaccine supplies to the country, Ukraine faced a new problem, namely “lack of faith in vaccination, refusal to vaccinate by a significant part of the population.”
“This is a new but very serious issue that we all need to address. Personally I am ready, like most world leaders, to show that vaccination is important, safe and necessary,” the president said.
The president said that Ukraine will buy only safe vaccines from world manufacturers.
“There is no official information that the Russian vaccine has a 91% effect, neither from WHO nor from world experts. The head of WHO said today that there are several key points to pay attention to, one of them – fakes. Citizens of Ukraine are people and definitely not rabbits. We have no right to experiment on them,” Zelensky said.
“Today I will talk to Pfizer. We should get one million vaccines in February. In addition, there are agreements with the Chinese manufacturer. There are agreements with the U.K. and the United States,” he added.
The president said that Ukraine must purchase vaccines and provide an opportunity for all Ukrainians to be vaccinated. “As a state, we will lift the bans on people who are vaccinated or have contracted COVID-19,” Zelensky said.
The head of state also said that Ukraine has developed a vaccination roadmap, which provides for proper and equal access for all citizens of Ukraine.
“Its main task is to cover at least half of the population of Ukraine during 2021 and early 2022,” the president said.
Health Minister of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov told President Volodymyr Zelensky that today Ukraine received confirmation for the supply of 12 million doses of vaccines produced by AstraZeneca and Novavax, the presidential press service said.
“The sooner we receive vaccines, the faster we will overcome pandemics in Ukraine. I know that the Cabinet of Ministers is carefully working on the development of a website that will help Ukrainians to easily and conveniently register for vaccination. Like every Ukrainian, I look forward to the start of the vaccination process. Some 12 million doses is a good signal from our partners, and this will be enough to ensure vaccinations within the first months after the start of supplies,” Zelensky said.
Deliveries will take place from February 2021.
Thus, during a meeting with the president, Stepanov said an agreement had been reached on the supply of vaccines developed with the participation of AstraZeneca (Great Britain and Oxford University) and Novavax (the United States), which are produced under license agreements at the facilities of Serum Institute (India).
The confirmation received will be implemented through a contract between the Serum Institute and Crown Agents.
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA, Kyiv) is ready to transport vaccines.
“Since the beginning of 2021, the active stage of vaccination has begun all over the world, which will tend to increase throughout the current year. In order to ensure safe delivery of vaccines, UIA has prepared Boeing 737 and Boeing 767 aircraft to transport the vaccines as cargo,” the press service of UIA said on Monday.
The airline also expressed its readiness to transport the vaccine not only to Ukraine, but all over the world. At the same time, it is noted that given the peculiarities of compliance with the required temperature regimes, transportation of the vaccine by air is the fastest and most reliable method of delivery.
According to the company, since the implementation of quarantine measures, UIA has transported 870 tonnes of medical cargo.
