The Health Ministry on Sept. 17 announced that it’s okay to mix Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines since they both use a similar mRNA technology.
“Mixing COVID-19 vaccines is safe and effective,” said the ministry’s press service, referring to the conclusion of the National Technical Group of Experts on Immunoprophylaxis.
The interval between the first and second shots is 28 days.
The move comes after the ministry’s report that there would not be a Moderna supply coming in September.
Ukraine is not the first country to allow combining vaccines — Bahrain, Bhutan, Canada, Italy, South Korea, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates have begun allowing mixed vaccines.
Several ongoing studies are investigating the effects of mixing coronavirus shots. Data released from mixed trials in Spain and the United Kingdom suggests that mixing vaccines leads to a strong immune response and sometimes outperforms two doses of the same vaccine.
Read more: Quarantine restrictions eased for vaccinated people, but majority of Ukrainians still refuse the jab
As of Sept. 16, 5.1 million Ukrainians are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and additionally, over 1.1 million people have received the first of the two doses. The vaccination campaign started on Feb. 24.
Minister of Health Viktor Lyashko announced that the fifth and final stage of COVID-19 vaccination in Ukraine began on July 21. Since then, all willing adults are now able to get a jab.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Health also now allows voluntary COVID-19 vaccination of children over the age of 12 with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, starting July 30.
Children over 12 can get the Pfizer vaccine if they have a high risk of severe disease related to COVID-19, are traveling abroad where the vaccine is mandatory or have already received the first dose of Pfizer in another country.
On July 21, Kyiv’s primary mass vaccination center started offering Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to everyone, as well as CoronaVac.
People who are vaccinated against COVID-19 will be exempt from quarantine restrictions.
Those who received a single dose of the vaccine will be exempt from restrictions in Ukraine’s “yellow zones.” People who received both doses will be exempt from restrictions in the “red zones.”
People will be able to prove their status by showing the recently-launched digital vaccination documents. These include a “green” certificate for people with both doses and a “yellow” one for people with only one dose.
The certificates come in the form of a QR code in the Diia mobile app. They also say whether a person has tested negative for the virus in the last 72 hours or has recovered from the disease.
All of Ukraine is currently “green”, but that will change soon, the Health Ministry stated. In the past week, new COVID-19 cases jumped by 6,000, and the number of hospitalizations increased by 1,500. The Ministry predicts that a new lockdown may be introduced in November. Zakarpattia will be the first region to go “yellow” on Sept. 20.
