Since the launch of a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Ukraine, 19,118 people have received their first shot of the Covishield vaccine.
Some 3,277 people got vaccinated against COVID-19 in Ukraine on Friday, March 5, alone, according to the Ukrainian Health Ministry's Coronavirus_info channel on Telegram.
Most vaccine shots so far have been administered in Donetsk region (2,474).
Read alsoCOVID-19 myths: Ukraine gov't debunks fake stories compromising vaccinationIn turn, chief of the National Technical Group on Immunization Fedir Lapiy has said vaccination is proceeding at a slow pace due to the low number of vaccination teams.
According to him, more instructors are being trained to teach medics how to properly administer Covishield jabs, as reported by the RBC Ukraine news agency.
Vaccination in Ukraine
On February 24, 2021, Ukraine launched a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign. An emergency room doctor from Cherkasy region was the first one to get vaccinated.
Ukraine uses the Covishield vaccine, which was developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca. It is produced in India under a licensing agreement.
Ukraine has received 500,000 doses of the vaccine so far.
The vaccination campaign in Ukraine was originally expected to start with the use of a vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, which Ukraine was supposed to receive during the first wave of distribution under the global COVAX Facility. The supply of 117,000 doses of that vaccine to Ukraine has been booked.
