Ukraine has almost 8.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines; methods of storage have been revised due to blackouts — Health Ministry

Even during the all-out war, the efforts to vaccinate Ukrainians against coronavirus infection and other diseases has not stopped. Ihor Kuzin, Chief State Sanitary Doctor, Deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine, made this statement at a briefing at Media Center Ukraine — Ukrinform.

“Vaccination was not suspended in Ukraine, except for territories with active hostilities or regions where the security situation did not allow (vaccination to continue). But the immunization infrastructure has been reduced by almost two thirds since the first day of the war, and this means that fewer vaccination centers are now operating. But at the same time mobile brigades worked more intensively. Now Ukraine is provided with vaccines: there are almost 8.5 million doses of vaccine in total. These are Coronavac, Pfizer, including vaccines for children, and Johnson & Johnson,” — Kuzin said.

The Chief State Sanitary Doctor explained how the approach to storing heat-labile vaccines has changed in conditions of power outages.

“The Ministry of Health has revised the approaches to storing vaccines. The logistics system has been changed and we mainly store the vaccine in large institutions, where backup power supply is provided 100%. Algorithms of doctors’ actions related to the frequency of checking storage conditions were adjusted. Any batch of vaccine that has been stored in improper conditions will be disposed of. And in vaccination centers, repurposed equipment is used to keep the necessary temperature much longer to preserve the vaccine,” — Kuzin said.

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