Some leading American mass media published materials related to vaccination in Ukraine. For example, the Reuters agency drew attention to the unenviable position of Ukraine in the issue of vaccine distribution among European countries, and The Washington Post published an article about states that, for political reasons, refuse vaccines from producers they do not like. Ukraine was also included in this list.
ElitExpert understood what the foreign media were writing about.
"Victim of uneven distribution of vaccines"
Reuters noted that Ukraine was at the back of the queue for vaccines and is delaying its independent purchase, refusing drugs from the Russian Federation, while at the same time persuading Europe to provide vaccines to the entire population of the country.
Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov gave a comment to the journalists of the publication, who said that in Ukraine they asked the EU to provide the necessary amount of vaccines, but in Europe they decided to take care of their citizens first.
Although the EU did not reject Ukraine completely. In February, we will receive more than 100 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech according to the COVAX scheme. Also, Chinese vaccines will appear in Ukraine, although questions about their effectiveness still remain. But, according to the authors of the article, it is not worth counting on much.
"According to the Economist Intelligence Unit report, Ukraine and Moldova are the only countries in Europe that can achieve universal vaccination against COVID only by 2023," the article says.
Officials shift the blame for delays in the deployment of the immunization campaign to each other.
"I believe that Ukraine has become a victim of uneven distribution of vaccines," the authors of the article quote Lotta Sylvander, head of the UNICEF representative office in Ukraine.
In her opinion, Ukraine may have reacted too slowly, and "this is a cruel market."
Are vaccines out of politics?
Governments around the world are fighting for vaccines, but there are some states that not only refuse potential doses, but also officially prohibit them. The Washington Post writes about it.
The author of the article, in particular, mentioned Ukraine, which banned the Russian vaccine "Sputnik-V". Iran and Taiwan were also included in the list: the first banned American-made vaccines, while the second banned Chinese-made vaccines.
"Ukraine, Iran and Taiwan have not officially started their vaccination programs. And while Taiwan was praised for its successful response to the pandemic, Ukraine and Iran were in dire straits, which led to a significant number of victims. For experts, this is a worrying, though not necessarily unexpected, trend," writes The Washington Post.
The author quotes Pavel Kovtonyuk, Deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine in 2016-2019, who believes that Kiev's failure to use the Russian vaccine is not only a political issue, but also a national security issue.
Meanwhile, the lack of a vaccine in the country provoked growing discontent.
"Ukraine, with a population of more than 40 million people, is one of the largest European countries that has not yet started a vaccination campaign. President Volodymyr Zelensky has record low support ratings against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected 1,25 million people and killed more than 23 thousand people," the article says.
New data on Sputnik-V testing could allay fears about its safety, but the political factor comes into play here.
"Since 2014, Ukraine has had tense relations with Russia, which supported separatists in the east of the country and annexed the Crimean peninsula," the author explains, adding that the Russian authorities have already started vaccination in Crimea and now it is the turn of the uncontrolled territories of Donbass.
"There is common sense in the fact - as the Russians loudly declare - that access to vaccines should go beyond geopolitics, and everyone should receive high-quality vaccines, regardless of their origin," - quotes a journalist from a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, who deals with the state of public health in Ukraine and Russia.
At the same time, he believes that ignoring geopolitical consequences is naive.
The author of the material writes that although Ukraine is unlikely to change its decision to the Russian vaccine, although at this stage it has few alternatives.
