As of Saturday morning, 123,964 Ukrainians received the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine said.
“As of today, 1.1 million Ukrainians received the first dose of the vaccine, 123,964 were vaccinated with two doses. A total of 1.1 million vaccinations were carried out,” the Ministry said on its Facebook page.
The British purchasing agency Crown Agents delivered the first 117,000 doses out of 167,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 to Ukraine from Belgium on Wednesday.
Crown Agents told Interfax-Ukraine that the second batch of vaccine (50,000 doses) is expected on Thursday.
According to head of Crown Agents in Ukraine Tetiana Korotchenko, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was transported in compliance with all storage rules under the required temperature conditions.
In February, Crown Agents delivered 500,000 doses of Covishield vaccine to Ukraine, developed by AstraZeneca in cooperation with the University of Oxford.
The next delivery of the Pfizer vaccine may take place after May 17, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov has said.
“We expect to receive Pfizer vaccines under the COVAX initiative and direct contract in the near future, tentatively from May 17,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
According to the minister, the Ministry of Health is technically ready to maximize the daily vaccination against coronavirus (COVID-19) disease, but this requires “more vaccines.”
“You know that now vaccines have been shipped that are in debt to us under the already signed contracts. In the last ten days alone, 1 million doses have arrived. Now the supply volumes of vaccines should increase,” he said.
Stepanov also said that in the near future Ukraine expects to receive vaccines from Sinovac and AstraZeneca.
“As soon as the supply of vaccines increases, we will immediately increase the number of people who will be vaccinated. We can vaccinate 5-6 million people a month in a quiet mode. The main thing is that there are vaccines and those who want to be vaccinated,” Stepanov said.
He also noted that the Ministry of Health has “healthy optimism” regarding the prevention of a new outbreak of COVID-19 as a result of the Easter holidays.
“I am grateful to the Ukrainians for listening to the recommendations and that there were no mass visits to churches during the Easter holidays. The number of people who attended churches, according to the National Police, was 8 times less than it was before the epidemic – 793,000 people versus 7 million,” he said.
Ukraine has signed contracts for the supply of 42 million doses of coronavirus vaccines by the end of this year, about 5 million more doses are needed, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said.
“If you look at the number of doses that we have contracted, I emphasize, it was the contracted amount for which we paid the funds, together with COVAX, then we now have 42 million doses of vaccines for which we have already signed [contracts], these are all supplies for this year,” the minister said during the Segodnya Vecherom (Tonight) program on the Ukraine 24 television on Friday evening.
“About 5 million more doses are needed,” Stepanov noted.
“We have relevant proposals, in particular from the Serum Institute, to increase the amount of doses of the Novavax vaccine, and we also have a proposal regarding Sinovac. Now we are deciding on the timeframe of delivery,” he added.
Another batch of CoronaVac vaccines was delivered to Ukraine, Health Minister of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov has said.
“The next 500,000 doses of CoronaVac vaccine from Sinovac Biotech have just landed in Boryspil,” Stepanov said on his Facebook page.
According to him, a total of 1.9 million of this vaccine have been contracted in Ukraine, of which 1.215 million have already been received by the country.
Ukraine has signed a contract with U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer to supply an additional 10 million doses against coronavirus disease, Ukrainian Health Minister Maksym Stepanov has told President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.
“After lengthy and difficult negotiations with Pfizer, we have reached an agreement on the supply of an additional 10 million doses. We signed the contract this night. That is, in total, we will receive 20 million doses of Pfizer vaccine during this calendar year,” Stepanov said.
The press service of the head of state said that according to the agreements, Ukraine will receive the first 500,000 doses under this contract in May-June 2021, 4.5 million doses in the third quarter (July-September), and the remaining 15 million doses in the fourth quarter of this year.
The conclusion of the agreement was made possible thanks to Zelensky’s direct communication with Pfizer CEO Albert Burla. The president personally coordinated the process of negotiations on the supply of the drug to Ukraine, because today the demand for vaccines in the world significantly exceeds production. Therefore, the Ukrainian government used various tools to provide the country with a high-quality vaccine. In particular, the strategic communications of the President and the constant operational communications of the Ministry of Health made it possible to sign a contract and receive a high-quality vaccine in Ukraine in significant volumes.
Zelensky thanked the CEO of Pfizer for helping Ukraine during the difficult times of the pandemic and noted the efforts of the representatives of Ukraine who accompanied the signing of the contract.
“This is a truly remarkable result. Now the task of the state is to ensure vaccination of the maximum number of citizens. It is also necessary to more actively explain to people the importance of vaccination against COVID-19, because this is the only way to overcome the pandemic, return to normal life and forget about quarantines forever,” the president said.
