The investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine into possible purchases by the Ministry of Health of the Chinese Sinovac coronavirus vaccine at an inflated price will negatively affect negotiations with manufacturers.
This was announced by the Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov during an online briefing on Tuesday, February 16.
"What are these attacks leading to - the consequences will affect every Ukrainian. Ukraine is already losing confidence in vaccine manufacturers. Similar situations destroy the reputation of our state. We already have complicated enough negotiations to get additional doses of vaccines. Due to dirty information attacks, manufacturers began to express their reluctance to further cooperation," he said.
Stepanov believes that such actions are an attempt to disrupt the vaccination campaign in our country.
"We are talking about the demand for the failure of the vaccination campaign. And this, in turn, opens the way to the one vaccine that we are so strongly offered. My position is that the Russian vaccine will not be allowed on the Ukrainian market," the minister said.
In addition, the head of the Ministry of Health considers the NABU case to be one of the tools of the information war against the Ministry's team. At the same time, he said that he would provide the Bureau with all the necessary documents within 24 hours.
"Last week, everyone heard about the opening of the NABU case on the purchase of vaccines. This morning, the Ministry of Health received a request from NABU to provide information on all negotiations with manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccines. I immediately gave orders to prepare all the necessary documents. Three days have been set for their preparation, but I think that all these documents will be transferred to NABU within a day," he said.
