The Ministry of Health is in negotiations with foreign companies regarding the purchase of vaccines against COVID-19 immediately after their registration, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov has said during the hour of questions to the government in the Verkhovna Rada.
“We are negotiating with AstraZeneca regarding the number of vaccines they will be ready to supply to us. It has already been decided that, if confirmed, we are ready to make an advance payment. In addition, we are negotiating with a Chinese manufacturer, which is also at the third stage of testing. Ukraine was accepted into the COVAX initiative on the distribution of vaccines – 20% of the population, about 8 million doses for our country. The process of signing the relevant agreements, memorandums is underway, so that after the registration of vaccines we could receive them. We also communicate with other companies,” he said.
In addition, the minister said that the Ministry of Health is increasing its capacity to combat the pandemic.
“Laboratory centers are provided with tests for about 1.5 months. The tests are purchased mainly from two Ukrainian manufacturers, they are also purchased at the expense of the World Bank. In five months, we resumed the work of laboratory centers (from four to 69), and increased the number of PCR tests per day from 200 to almost 25,000. The total number of tests made has already reached almost 1.7 million,” Stepanov said.
He also noted that the situation with the incidence of doctors with COVID-19 has changed: to date, the number of sick doctors has decreased by almost four times.
