Stepanov speaks about contracted vaccines: we have more than enough for 2021 vaccination

Ukraine expects to receive at least 22.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from various manufacturers and plans to negotiate other supplies.

Health Minister Maksym Stepanov stated this on February 24 at a briefing at the Ministry of Health.

"During our visit to India, we managed to solve several strategic tasks. In particular, we agreed in advance on an additional batch of vaccines developed by the American company Novavax. Another 5 million NovaVax vaccines are to be contracted.

As of today, we have the expected supply of vaccines:

1. from Pfizer as part of the COVAX initiative, more than 100 thousand doses,
2. from Sinovac, about 2 million doses,
3. from AstraZeneca, we have another 1.5 million (doses) to receive from the Serum Institute,
4. from either the Serum Institute or another manufacturer under the COVAX initiative, up to 4 million,
5. from NovaVax, as we signed 10 million doses of vaccines, and we expect to sign a contract for 5 million soon under the agreements I have reached."

The Minister added that the Ministry of Health was not going to stop and would still contract the purchase of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus: "We are waiting for the final versions of contracts from manufacturers."

The Minister stressed that during his visit to India he had visited one of the world's leading manufacturers, Bharat Biotech, which developed a COVID-19 vaccine.

"The vaccine has passed three stages of clinical trials; more than 25 thousand volunteers participated in the last stage. The final results of the third stage of clinical trials are expected within 10 days. Preliminary conclusions of scientists are optimistic, the vaccine is effective and safe," he said.

"During negotiations with the company, we agreed on mutual readiness of the manufacturer and Ukraine to participate in clinical trials of a recent advancement, vaccines as nasal spray or drops. They begin the first stage of testing, and the second or third ones can be partially conducted in Ukraine. They plan to finish trials in September-October. Carrying out such research in Ukraine will give us priority access to the vaccine in case of its effectiveness," Stepanov added.

On February 23, the first batch of 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca (Covishield) COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Ukraine from India.