The first batch of the vaccine against novel coronavirus will arrive in Ukraine next week, Viktor Lyashko, chief sanitary doctor and deputy health minister, said on Feb. 13.
Ukraine will start vaccination immediately after it gets the vaccine.
It is unclear yet how many doses exactly will come in the first cargo but this number will range from 500,000 to 1 million. A person needs two doses.
This vaccine is made by AstraZeneca, a British–Swedish company based in the U.K.
However, the vaccine will not be shipped from the U.K., but from India’s Serum Institute, which has the license to produce AstraZeneca’s vaccine on its facilities.
This is the first portion of altogether 12 million doses of the vaccine Ukraine ordered from both AstraZeneca and Novavax, an American vaccine development company.
In February, Ukraine is expected to start receiving vaccines from different sources.
One is COVAX, the global coronavirus vaccine alliance, which is giving Ukraine 8 million doses for free. Ukraine will get the first batch of the COVAX vaccines, 117,000 doses, at some point in February.
Also, some 700,000 doses are expected to arrive in February from China, according to the Health Ministry. This is a Chinese-made vaccine Ukraine purchased from Chinese producer Sinovac Biotech.
How the vaccines will be distributed
The first group to get the vaccine are doctors who treat COVID-19 patients and Ukrainian soldiers at the front lines in the Donbas.
The authorities aim to vaccinate 367,000 people from this first priority group by the end of April.
The second wave of vaccination will include people aged 80 years and older and ambulance staff. They will be vaccinated by May.
At the beginning of summer, other medical workers will receive their jabs. The next group in the vaccination line includes people aged 70-79 years and employees of the state security agencies. They will get their shots by August.
By December, the authorities aim to vaccinate those who are 60-69-years-old, employees of educational institutions, and people with preexisting chronic illnesses which make them vulnerable to coronavirus.
Altogether Ukrainian authorities want to vaccinate 14.4 million people by the end of 2021.
As many as 58,000 Ukrainians from risk groups are looking forward to the vaccine and have already signed up for free vaccination, according to Lyashko.
How to apply to get vaccinated
Those who are not in the high-priority groups will be able to book a place for themselves in the vaccination queue, too, starting from March 1, according to Lyashko.
Their names will be put on a waiting list.
According to Lyashko, there will be three options to sign up for vaccination. The first is through the government website created for this purpose, the second is at family doctors’ offices, and the third is via a call center.
The government might add the fourth option later: To sign up for vaccination via Diya, a mobile application developed by the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
