Ministry of Health delays approving purchases of COVID-vaccine from second manufacturer – Head of Medzakupivel

One of the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers intends to refuse further negotiations with Ukraine if a decision on the order is not made soon.

The vaccine manufacturer sent the relevant message to the state enterprise "Medical Procurement of Ukraine," as the head of the state enterprise, Arsen Zhumadilov, told "Ukrainian Pravda. Life."

At the same time, he couldn't disclose the name of the manufacturer.

"Medical Procurement of Ukraine, which procures vaccines, has sent all proposals for contracts with several suppliers to the Ministry of Health for approval. On December 28, they received only one response agreeing to contract the Sinovac Biotech vaccine.

The agency didn't receive any information from the Ministry of Health regarding the contracting of another manufacturer," Zhumadilov said.

He clarified that negotiations between this manufacturer and Ukraine had reached the final stage.

"Two weeks ago, the Ministry of Health received all the needed documents to approve this purchase.

Since then, neither the manufacturer nor the state procurement agency "Medzakupli Ukrainy" has received any notification or feedback from the ministry," the head of the state enterprise said.

On January 4, the company announced in writing that it could refuse Ukraine's order in case of further delay.

To recap, on December 30, Medzakupli Ukrainy signed an agreement about the supply of 1 million 913 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Sinovac Biotech, China.