Ukraine’s medical system may soon have more tools to fight the coronavirus pandemic, including more vaccines, new cold storage equipment and better trained medical staff.
The final talks between Ukrainian state officials and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development concerning an $89 million loan took place on April 27.
On May 11, the agreement is expected to be signed in Washington, according to the Deputy Minister of Health Svitlana Shatalova.
“It was a big challenge, but we did it,” Shatalova told the Kyiv Post on April 29, recalling the “four-month intensive work” of the health ministry and the preparation of the “thousand page” agreement.
At the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Health received only $146 million from the state budget, which is almost four times less than what it requested.
“That’s all we had at the beginning of the year to vaccinate people across the country,” said Shatalova. “It’s not enough for sure.”
This forced the ministry to seek other sources of funding for the country’s medical needs.
When the IBRD signs the loan agreement, around $30 million will be used to buy vaccines by the end of this year.
Currently, 630,000 people out of Ukraine’s population of 42 million have received the first dose of the vaccine. Only ten people have been fully vaccinated.
While it’s still unclear how many doses the ministry will be able to buy from which producers, Shatalova assured that the vaccines will be “high quality, safe, and effective.”
According to Shatalova, countries, including Ukraine, cannot disclose vaccine prices because every vaccine producer requires that to stay confidential.
The Ministry also plans to partially replace old cold storage equipment in Ukrainian hospitals. There are some 8,700 units across the country, some of which are over 30 years old.
“We believe that such investments will be strategic,” Shatalova said. “When we talk about vaccinations to prevent infectious diseases, this is an investment in our future.”
The Ministry also plans to equip such storage units with telemetric data loggers that can measure temperature for centralized monitoring.
“We will know which exact vaccine is stored in refrigerators, and whether there have been any changes in temperature during storage,” Shatalova said.
For every 4 million people vaccinated against COVID-19, the IBRD will transfer $10 million into the state budget, up to a maximum of $30 million.
“I hope that the Ministry of Finance will give priority to the Health Ministry and use (the extra funds) for medical purposes,” said Shatalova.
The loan cooperation between the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the IBRD will last until 2023. Ukraine will have to make the first payments a year and a half after signing the loan agreement.
Shatalova is glad that Ukraine will have more funding for its poor medical system. But she said she would be even happier if the Ministry of Finance allocated more funds from the state budget so that “we do not have to ask for additional funding from international partners.”
“But the reality is what it is,” she said.
