Vaccinations picking up in Ukraine: Where to get them, what to expect
Elina Kent: Welcome to the Kyiv Post Podcast, where you can tune in to stories that give you a deeper understanding of Ukraine.
I’m your host Elina Kent. I’m a multimedia producer and lifestyle journalist here at the Kyiv Post.
Vaccination in Ukraine began on Feb. 24 at a snail pace, with only 2 people receiving a full dose by mid April.
But by May 7 a total of 821,768 people had received the first dose of the vaccine, while 428 people received two doses of the vaccine.
One of the biggest concerns when the vaccines were first released and bought up by rich western countries such as the US and UK was what did the future look like for countries that couldn’t afford to purchase the highly effective vaccines in bulk at once.
The issue of vaccine patents is yet another critical concern raised.
However US President Biden threw his support behind a World Trade Organization proposal on May 5 to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, clearing the hurdle for vaccine-strapped countries to manufacture their own vaccines even though the vaccine patents are privately held.
Health Minister Maksym Stepanov announced that U.S. pharmaceutical Pfizer will provide another batch of 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Ukraine, coming in addition to the 10 million doses that Pfizer already agreed to supply to the country in April.
Ukraine will receive the first 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in May-June, 4.5 million doses in July-September, and the remaining 15 million doses — before the end of the year.
The country received a new batch of AstraZeneca vaccine produced in South Korea and coming in 367,200 doses on April 23.
Ukraine currently administers vaccines from three producers: AstraZeneca, SinoVac and Pfizer.
And this news of Pfizer vaccines is very good because one of the reasons some Ukrainians are not getting vaccinated is because they don’t want the SinoVac vaccine, or the AstraZeneca vaccines produced in India, and would rather wait for vaccines such as Pfizer or Moderna.
The slow vaccine rollout also didn’t help. But we are now seeing a spike of vaccinations as it becomes more accessible.
To tell us about her experience of getting vaccinated we have our own Deputy Chief Editor Olga Rudenko here with us, who received her first vaccine dose just last week.
Welcome Olga!
Olga Rudenko: Thank you for having me.
EK: So after months of waiting and watching the slow uptick of vaccinations how were you able to get the vaccine?
OR: My situation is interesting because it illustrates how unnerving and messy the situation with the vaccine is. It’s not that there isn’t enough vaccine for everyone. Up until now Ukraine got 1.2 million vaccines while we have a 42 million population. But it’s also that the rollout is very messy and it’s not clear how you can get the vaccine.
EK: Olga had been looking into getting vaccinated since the vaccination campaign started in Ukraine in late February. There were several options that she could take. There was one option, a kind of shortcut, she could take as a journalist. The Ukrainian government has been vaccinating “opinion leaders”, many of them journalists, to show the population that the vaccines were safe. So as a journalist, you could get vaccinated ahead of the line.
OR: But I didn’t use that option because I never honestly I never made up my mind as to whether that would be ethical for me to get the vaccine in that way. Because I as a young person not in a risk group I don’t think I should get the vaccine before the people in the risk groups, so I didn’t take that short cut. A lot of people I know took that path and got vaccinated that way. And of course I don’t judge them because the more people get vaccinated the better. But at the same time I decided not to go that way.
So I looked into getting a leftover dose through a family doctor or clinic.
EK: Another option is to sign up on a list and wait for a leftover dose. You can sign up and wait for days or several weeks until you get a call from the doctor inviting you to get you vaccinated because somebody else turned down the vaccine.
OR: I was really hopeful to get vaccinated that way.
But something else happened. I heard of a clinic I learned of it on Twitter. One clinic in central Kyiv that as an experiment was taking in everybody to get vaccinated. Literally everybody you didn’t even have to register with a clinic to get an appointment, you just walk in, you have your passport and you get vaccinated. I learnt about it on Twitter and then next morning I went there and indeed I got vaccinated this way.
As it turns out the reason behind this so-called experiment shortly before that Ukraine got a big batch of Astrazeneca vaccines from South Korea 367,000 doses. And according to the government, according to the health ministry they wanted to use up the full batch in several days to demonstrate the full capacity of the health care system. My personal guess it’s not just about that. I saw that at least some packages on the vaccine the experimentation date was in May. So I think they had to use up that batch as fast as possible.
So I know that some clinics in Kyiv did this experiment and for several days it would take everyone who would walk in. So I got lucky.
But while I’m very happy that I got the vaccine it’s really unnerving to know that this is the only way you can do it, you have to watch for any tips of where you can get it, you have to stay alert and make a lot of phone calls to different clinics. I know people that called 50 clinics to ask if they had any spare vaccine doses.
It really frustrates you when you have to do it this way. And put in so much effort into getting the vaccine. And the reason people are doing this, is because if they get vaccinated according to the regular government plan of vaccination, their turn to get fully vaccinated will be at the end of the year and they don’t want to wait for that long.
Especially when we know a lot of people are turning down the vaccine.
EK: Unfortunately a lot of people turning down the vaccine are those in the risk group that need it, senior citizens. Due to misinformation in the media, and especially on social media, about the safety of the vaccine.
One of the biggest questions is the symptoms. Whether or not there are really bad symptoms after getting the shot. Did you experience any symptoms the following days after the vaccine?
OR: Yes I did get some side effects, some common side effects. I had a high fever and chills, it manifested itself the night after I got vaccinated. I got vaccinated around 11 am and around 7 pm that day the side effects kicked in. It was quite bad for several hours, very high fever but then I took some paracetamol and it got much better. And after that one day I had some leftover fever and weakness. So I would advise anybody who takes it to plan it the way you can spend the next day in bed if you need to.
But in general it was not that bad. I did read a lot before the vaccination and after I read a lot about the more dangerous side effects that are associated with the Astrazeneca vaccine which is the one I got.
I wish there were no side effects like that but I had to go look at how frequently they manifest themselves and I believe it’s something like once in 100,000 cases. And then you look at covid statistics and even in my age group and you weigh in the risks. Personally for myself the risks or any risks associated with getting vaccinated are much smaller than with getting covid.
EK: Yes and you actually have a higher chance of developing blood clots if you get sick with covid than with the vaccine so either way you have a risk.
You were saying that the expiration dates were in May and that they were trying to show the prowess of the Ukrainian Health Ministry. Is this kind of uptick of vaccinations expected to continue? Or are they going to return to the pace they were on before–
OR: –This is a very good question because when I got vaccinated last week in this clinic. So I obviously told a lot of friends about it. And some of them went there this week to get vaccinated and they were told that the clinic is out of the vaccine and it may get more in the coming weeks.
I looked at the statistics of the daily vaccinations in Ukraine. And last week when they started the demonstration of the prowess of the health care system, there was a huge spike in vaccinations. Before that it was 15,000 a day last week for several days it was 50 or 70,000 a day. When you look at the graphic it’s a huge spike and it looked very promising.
This week, of course we are looking at May holidays so a lot of people are away and the beginning of May is a very slow time in Ukraine.
But this week for a couple days it was 24,000 a day and 37,000 yesterday. So it looks promising, very promising. Especially if we get additional supplies soon which we should get, as you said earlier we are expecting half a million doses of Pfzier this month, but we are also expecting 1.2 million doses of Astrazeneca from Poland also in May or June.
So when those supplies came it’s going to get us on a really good track in terms of vaccination.
EK: What would you like to tell those considering getting vaccinated?
OR: As I said it’s a personal decision for everybody. I would just advise everyone to look at the risks of getting the side effects from the vaccines and the risks of severe complications of Covid. And make informed decisions.
EK: Thank you.
OR: Thank you!
EK: That was this week’s episode of the Kyiv Post podcast. I’m your host Elina Kent. You can learn more about vaccinations in Ukraine at vaccination.covid19.gov.ua. You can also subscribe to our podcasts on all streaming platforms and follow along on our website. Stay safe, stay home, and subscribe to the Kyiv Post.
