Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been vaccinated against the coronavirus. He was injected with the Indian drug CoviShield from the manufacturer Serum Institute of India
As the head of state said in his Twitter account, he was vaccinated on Tuesday, March 2, during his visit to the OOS zone in the Luhansk region.
“Got vaccinated against Covid-19 . Did it on the front line with our soldiers as commander-in-chief. The same Oxford / AstraZeneca (Covishield) from India, which was delivered 1st to Ukraine received by millions of people in the world. The vaccine will allow us to live without restrictions again”, – Zelensky wrote.
On his Instagram account, Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed that military personnel and medical workers in Ukraine are already being vaccinated against the coronavirus, while everyone else is encouraged by the president to sign up for the inoculation queue via the Diya app.
“There is nothing to be afraid of, setting a personal example”, – the head of state wrote.
It will be recalled that before Zelenskyy, the country’s Health Minister Maxim Stepanov was publicly vaccinated with the CoviShield vaccine on March 1. However, ordinary Ukrainians are in no hurry to follow the example of their leaders.
Ukraine received the first batch of the coronavirus vaccine – 117,000 doses – on 23 February. The next day the preparation was sent to the regions and medical staff have started to vaccinate with it.
On the very first day of the vaccination, the Indian drug caused several “side effects” in Cherkasy – fever, headaches, and redness of the injection site, which happened within the first half hour after the injection in six people.
And in Odessa the statistics is even worse. In 22 out of 60 people immunized against Covid-19, workers of medical institutions developed a temperature. That is a third of patients, which is a lot.
There is much controversy surrounding this vaccine. India, for example, says the drug is “very effective”, with a nod to the results of phase III studies in the UK and Brazil.
However, many independent experts point out that approval of the vaccine was rushed because the manufacturer had not completed its “interim study” on Indians. Many media outlets have tacitly dubbed CoviShield AstraZeneca’s option for poor countries”.
As EADaily reported, the day before former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, head of the European Solidarity Party criticized Indian vaccine CoviShield. He called it crap that was brought to the country “because of corruption and incompetence”.