Ukraine to buy 2 million locally produced COVID-19 test kits

The Ukrainian government has ordered 2 million COVID-19 tests produced by domestic manufacturers, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the President’s Office, stated on the Ukraina television channel’s talk show Svoboda Slova on April 3.

Starting next week, local producers will be delivering 2,000-7,000 COVID-19 test kits daily, Tymoshenko said.

So far, Ukraine has been importing polymerase chain reaction (PRC) tests from China and South Korea. But according to Tymoshenko, Ukrainian-made PRC tests are cheaper but work just as well.

All locally produced PCR kits have already been tested in Ukrainian laboratories and showed their efficiency, Tymoshenko said.

However, on April 2, three Ukrainian laboratories complained to the Kyiv Post that the government didn’t rush to make a deal with them and give them funding. Two labs said that combined, they can produce over 100,000 tests in less than a month.

On April 2, Viktor Lyashko, Ukraine’s chief sanitary doctor, confirmed that Ukraine wanted to make 2 million PCR tests.

As of April 3, fewer than 4,000 patients have been tested for COVID-19.

So far, the vast majority of tests have been provided to Ukraine by donors — 100,000 came from a Ukrainian politician who bought them in South Korea, 50,000 from Chinese tycoon Jack Ma and 2,550 from the World Health Organization.

To meet the government’s goal of having 2 million tests, Ukraine needs to get roughly 13 times as many tests as it has now.

Meanwhile, on April 4, the total number of COVID-19 cases surged to 1,096. Twenty-eight people have died, 23 recovered.

The largest number of coronavirus cases in Ukraine were registered in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast (272 cases), Chernivtsi Oblast (206 cases), Ternopil Oblast (135 cases), and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (94 cases).