26 March 2021, Friday, 14:26 270

Foreign Ministry Confirms India's Suspension Of CoviShield Coronavirus Vaccine Supply To Ukraine

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) confirms the suspension by India of the supply to Ukraine of the CoviShield (AstraZeneca) coronavirus vaccine produced by the Serum Institute India.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced this at a briefing, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"I want to thank the government of India for the delivery of the first batch. Indeed, now the export of vaccine from India has been paused. I will not go into details, but this is a fact," he said.

At the same time, Kuleba did not comment on the information about the alleged receipt of a letter from the Indian embassy regarding the discrediting statements in Ukraine regarding the vaccine manufacturer.

"I have never commented on diplomatic correspondence. It is intimate by definition," he said.

At the same time, the minister said that the results of the analysis of waves of criticism of the vaccine indicate that "we can talk about a special information attack on CoviShield in different countries."

Kuleba added that the suspension of supplies of this vaccine applies not only to Ukraine, but also to other countries to which it was supplied, for example, Canada and Brazil.

As Ukrainian News Agency reported, earlier the chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Nation Health, Medical Aid and Health Insurance Mykhailo Radutskyi (Servant of the People faction) said that the delivery of the next batch of CoviShield vaccine to Ukraine may be postponed for a certain period due to the information campaign deployed against it in our country.

According to him, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed Kuleba and Health Minister Maksym Stepanov to convince Indian partners that the state is not involved in discrediting the vaccine supplier and to do everything possible to speed up the delivery of the next batch to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy sees no reason to refuse the AstraZeneca (CoviShield) coronavirus vaccine.