Government has allocated an additional UAH 6.5 billion to vaccinate the adult population against COVID-19

On April 14, 2021, the Government adopted a resolution on the additional allocation of funds from the state budget in the amount of UAH 6.5 billion for the purchase of coronavirus disease COVID-19 vaccines. This decision was approved by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Budget the same day.

Taking into account the corresponding expenditures in 2020, the total amount of state budget expenditures for the purchase of vaccines against acute respiratory disease COVID-19 is UAH 11.4 billion.

The Government has taken all necessary measures to provide the Ministry of Health of Ukraine with funds for the purchase of vaccines and immunization by the end of 2021 of 70% of the adult population, which has been determined from the total population of UAH 41.7 million people according to State Statistics Committee as of January 1, 2020. That is, it is planned to vaccinate 34.2 million adults.

This requires almost 48 million doses of vaccine, including 8 million doses to be received free of charge under the COVAX mechanism.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health faces a very serious challenge: to ensure the timely purchase and delivery of the appropriate number of vaccines to Ukraine and to properly organize vaccination to achieve the stated indicators. After all, this is almost 6 million vaccinations per month from May to the end of 2021 (on average more than 250 thousand vaccinations per day) and coverage of 70% of the adult population by two doses of vaccines by the end of the year.