Up to 10 mln COVID-19 jabs could be administered  per month if vaccine available – health chief

As many as 10 million COVID-19 vaccinations could be done each month if the appropriate volumes of vaccines were available, health minister Maksym Stepanov says.

"Speaking of numbers, the capacity of our entire system with 11,000 vaccination rooms, even if we do 40-50 vaccinations per day [in each room], is about 400,000-500,000 vaccinations per day. Multiplying by the number of working days, we get about 10 million vaccinations per month, which we can administer in vaccination rooms alone. There are also mobile teams, as well as vaccination centers that we could deploy. The main issue is that of vaccine supplies. Unfortunately, today all the terms stipulated by contracts have been violated, both under direct contracts and as part of the COVAX facility," the minister told Ukraine 24 TV.

As of May 6, a total of 2,132 vaccination stations operate in Ukraine, the Health Ministry says.

COVID-19 vaccination in Ukraine: Background

On April 28, 2021, Stepanov said the country would receive nearly 1 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in May 2021.

"We expect Pfizer from two sources. The first one is COVAX – 473,000 doses. We have official confirmation from COVAX that the supplies will take place by May 17-18. In May, we also expect about 500,000 doses from Pfizer under a direct contract," he said.

Read alsoHealth Minister Stepanov elaborates on COVID-19 vaccine supplies to Ukraine in MayAt least 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca shots are expected to be delivered this month from India, Stepanov said.

Another 1.4 million doses of AstraZeneca are expected as part of the COVAX Facility.

UNIAN memo.

On February 24, 2021, Ukraine launched a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

The following vaccines are now being used in Ukraine: Covishield (AstraZeneca), a recombinant vector vaccine produced under a license at the Serum Institute of India; CoronaVac, which was developed by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech; and Comirnaty by Pfizer/BioNTech.

On April 23, Ukraine also received over 367,200 doses of AstraZeneca-SKBio vaccine, produced in South Korea, as part of the COVAX Facility aid.