Ukraine discarding vaccines as doctors avoid inoculation

Ukrainian medical facilities have discarded unused COVID-19 vaccines after doctors failed to show up for scheduled vaccinations, lawmakers from the ruling party said on Monday.

Ukraine recently began vaccinating its 41 million inhabitants against COVID-19 after receiving its first batch of 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca, produced in India, last week, but it faces a battle against vaccine skepticism.

The government prioritized healthcare workers in the first place, but cited statistics showing that 47 percent of Ukrainians do not want the vaccine, Reuters reports.

– It is important for us to understand why doctors are refusing vaccination – said Oleksandr Kornienko, head of President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People party.

– This is very bad, but there is no other option. If a person scheduled for vaccination does not show up, it can be kept open for 2-3 hours, after which it must be discarded – said the head of the parliamentary health committee, Mykhailo Radutskyi.

A total of 3,141 doses have been administered since February 28, including only 90 doses in the past 24 hours, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said the government is working to prevent vaccines from being discarded, adding that this has also happened in other countries.

He was vaccinated live on Monday and said that President Zelensky will also receive the vaccine soon.

A significant portion of Ukraine's population, as well as other former Soviet republics, are traditionally cautious about vaccines, fearing side effects from low-quality drugs. Such distrust allowed the measles epidemic to break out in 2019.

As of March 1, Ukraine had registered 1.3 million cases of infection and 26,050 deaths from COVID-19.