KYIV (Reuters) – Pfizer plans to file a registration application for the use of its COVID-19 vaccine in Ukraine on Thursday, Ihor Kuzin, acting head of the ministry’s public health centre, said.
Ukraine’s authorities have said the country expects to receive its first batch of 117,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in February within the framework of the COVAX programme.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week that Ukraine had secured 12 million doses developed by AstraZeneca and Novavax. The vaccines would by made by India’s Serum Institute.
Kyiv expects to receive at least 8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines under the global COVAX scheme.
No vaccine has yet been formally approved for use in Ukraine, but authorities have repeatedly said Kyiv will not approve or use vaccines from Russia, with which it is at loggerheads.
Ukraine formally banned registration of Russian-designed vaccines against the novel coronavirus.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by David Goodman and Barbara Lewis)
