KIEV, Feb 22 (.) – Ukraine has agreed to extend the quantity of doses of COVID-19 vaccine bought from US producer Novavax to 15 million, Well being Minister Maksym Stepanov mentioned on Monday.
The primary batches of the vaccine are scheduled to reach in Ukraine from July, Stepanov mentioned on Fb. Ukraine lags behind most European international locations on the subject of sourcing COVID-19 vaccines and has but to start out mass vaccinations.
“We have now acquired affirmation (from the producer, the Serum Institute of India) that it’s doable to provide one other 5 million doses of the vaccine … The full quantity of Novavax vaccines we anticipate in Ukraine is 15 million,” he mentioned. Stepanov.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said this month that Ukraine had obtained 12 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Novavax from the Serum Institute.
Stepanov, who visited India this weekend, mentioned Sunday that the primary batch of 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine was on its option to Ukraine. These answerable for the Ministry of Well being affirm that the doses will arrive “at any second”, however they haven’t given a precise date.
Ukraine, which has recorded greater than 1.3 million coronavirus circumstances and 25,156 deaths, has already agreed to purchase some vaccines from China and expects to obtain at the very least 8 million doses beneath the worldwide COVAX program for probably the most deprived international locations.
Stepanov said final week that purchases of coronavirus vaccines in Kiev had been being hampered by “junk data assaults” which have led to a corruption investigation in opposition to his ministry.
The minister denied any wrongdoing after the anti-corruption company NABU launched an investigation this month into the procurement of Chinese language vaccines from Sinovac by way of an middleman importer, Lekhim.
(Info from Pavel Polityuk, edited by Raissa Kasolowsky, translated by Flora Gómez within the Gdansk newsroom)
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