“The Parliament of Ukraine must consider the Government's responsibility for the failure to vaccinate Ukrainians from COVID-19,” Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada Olena Kondratiuk
14 January 2021, 15:30
This conviction was expressed by Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Olena Kondratiuk. According to her, vaccine nationalism is emerging in the world as each country tries to secure its own strategic stockpile of COVID-19 vaccines.
“The world is very quickly divided into those who have access to a quality vaccine and those who have to wait for humanitarian aid or the goodwill of their neighbors, or order what is left. Timely and comprehensive vaccination of the population against coronavirus becomes the main task of the agenda of every wise and responsible Government,” noted Olena Kondratiuk.
She noted that according to Bloomberg, 45 countries have already started vaccinating citizens against COVID-19, distributing 32.4 million doses of the vaccine. In particular, in Israel, 22 vaccinations were given for every 100 citizens of the country, in the UK 4.6, in the US 3.3, in Denmark 2, in Italy 1.4, in Spain 1.3, Canada 1.1, Lithuania and Estonia – 1 dose, in Latvia 0,52. In Germany, 758 thousand vaccinations were given (0.91 per 100 population), in Poland 310 thousand doses of vaccine were used (0.82 / 100).
The Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada noted that Albania, with a population smaller than in Kyiv, started mass vaccination on January 11. In particular, the government of this country received the first batch of 500 thousand doses of vaccines from COVID-19 from Pfizer / BioNTech. In February, by the same vaccine, purchased at public expense, will begin free vaccination in Moldova.
“Against this background, Ukraine, which has not yet started vaccination and has zero stocks of COVID-19 vaccines, looks like a complete loser, like a third world country. The only thing our officials managed to do was to agree on the purchase of the Chinese vaccine, the effectiveness of which has not yet been proven,” Olena Kondratiuk remarked.
According to her, the question of which vaccine Ukraine will receive within the COVAX initiative has not been answered. There is also no communication campaign and understanding: how, when and where every Ukrainian will be able to get vaccinated for free. The Deputy Speaker of the Parliament assumes that in Ukraine it will be difficult to vaccinate the first 20 million citizens who are at risk, given the lack of communication, distrust of the authorities and any vaccines in general.