Ukraine's Health Ministry on February 22 certified the Oxford/AstraZeneca (Covishield) vaccine against COVID-19 for emergency use in the country.
"The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, which is produced at the facilities of the Serum Institute (India), has a local (trade) name Covishield. Accordingly, the Covishield vaccine, which is arriving in Ukraine today, is officially registered. Oxford/AstraZeneca (Covishield) filed for registration with the Health Ministry's State Expert Center on February 15. A law is in effect in Ukraine that simplifies the registration procedure for vaccines against COVID-19 and reduces it to five working days," the ministry's press service reported on Facebook.
Read alsoUkraine to get 15 mln doses of NovaVax vaccine – health ministerIt is noted the vaccine was developed by Oxford University and the British-Swedish AstraZeneca. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has already been approved by the World Health Organization, as well as by the UK, the European Union, and India.
COVID-19 vaccine for Ukraine
Ukraine has received information from COVAX on the supply of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines from 2.2 to 3.7 million doses in the first or second quarter of 2021. In addition, the vaccine will be purchased for public funds directly from manufacturers. At least 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are expected to arrive in Ukraine in February 2021.
Ukraine has signed contacts for the supply of 12 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, which were developed by AstraZeneca (UK-Sweden) and NovaVax (the United States) and are produced at the Serum Institute facilities (India).
On February 21, 2021, Ukraine's Health Minister Maksym Stepanov who had recently flown to India to seal the issues of COVID-19 vaccine supply reported on the progress as regards shipment. A total of 500,000 doses of the vaccine are going to Ukraine.
