Ukraine Kicks Off Vaccination Drive After Delays Spark Ire

Kiev, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Feb, 2021 ) :Ukraine on Wednesday launched a nationwide campaign to inoculate its population against the coronavirus, following delays that sparked anger against the government in one of Europe's poorest countries.

The ex-Soviet nation of 40 million people has struggled to keep up with other European countries in sourcing vaccines.

"We have vaccinated the first doctor," Oleksandr Skichko, governor of the central Cherkasy region, announced at a news conference as the programme kicked off in seven of Ukraine's 25 regions.

At a hospital in Brovary, a small town about 30 kilometres (18 miles) east of the capital Kiev, the atmosphere was festive on Wednesday afternoon.

"Is the vaccine coming? Where's the red carpet?" a nurse joked shortly before three women in disposable blue smocks brought a container with the first doses.

The 30-year-old head of the infectious diseases department, Tetyana Shulzhenko, was the first to get the jab.

"I hope the results will be positive and fewer Ukrainians will get ill," she told reporters.

- 'Solidarity test' - Ukraine received 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine on Tuesday, marketed under the name Covishield and produced at the Serum Institute in India.

Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said the first of those doses had been dispatched to regions outside the capital.

The ministry's five-stage programme begins with mobile teams administering the jabs to 367,000 people in priority groups.

The first group includes healthcare workers treating Covid-19 patients and the elderly with chronic illnesses. The ministry said vaccinations would be voluntary.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had faced criticism for failing to obtain Western vaccines for his country whose ageing public health system has been under strain during the pandemic.

Health officials have so far recorded over 1.3 million cases and more than 25,000 deaths from the coronavirus.

During a meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday, his Lithuanian counterpart Gabrielius Landsbergis said that Lithuania planned to give Ukraine surplus doses once its own needs are met.

"The Covid-19 pandemic is a global test of solidarity," Kuleba said.

- No 'aggressor' vaccine - Zelensky blamed the delay on wealthy Western countries which he said had reserved the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in bulk.

His government initially announced it would begin its vaccination campaign in mid-February, but the date was pushed back after the vaccines' arrival was delayed.

This week Ukraine greenlighted the use of the Pfizer vaccine and is awaiting the delivery of 100,000 doses -- the first of eight million due under the global Covax programme, to be distributed free of charge.

But some doctors are concerned that many Ukrainians -- including medical professionals -- will be unwilling to receive the Indian-produced jab.

"When we talked about Pfizer, we were more confident. But there are more fears about this Indian vaccine," Valentyn Bagnyuk, head of the Brovary hospital, told AFP.

A Gallup poll published this month found that 65 percent of Ukrainians want to be inoculated against the coronavirus.

Ukraine has said it also secured 17 million doses of vaccines developed by Novavax and AstraZeneca, including the 500,000 that arrived on Tuesday.

The country has also signed a contract to receive 1.9 million doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine.

The government this month banned the use of one of the most popular vaccines in former Soviet republics, the Russian-developed Sputnik V jab, describing it as having been produced by an "aggressor".

Ukraine's army has been fighting Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since pro-Russian militias launched a bid for independence in the wake of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Separatist authorities said they had begun inoculating residents of the two breakaway regions using Sputnik V.