Shmyhal calls on Health Ministry to speed up work on vaccine production in Ukraine

He said this in his report in the parliament on the government's implementation of the Verkhovna Rada’s resolution on the measures to combat the spread of COVID-19, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“We are working on this now. More efforts are needed to do this, and this was one of the requirements for the previous health minister, these were his promises to the president and me. We held a number of meetings with Ukrainian scientists, but as you see, the vaccine has not been developed. Now I hope that with the new head the ministry will work on this direction more actively,” said Shmyhal.

The prime minister stressed that along with the purchase of foreign vaccines, it is necessary to develop domestic ones, to develop the capacity of the national scientific system, to develop vaccines not only against coronavirus, but also against other diseases.

As previously reported, newly appointed Health Minister Viktor Liashko said that three vaccines against COVID-19 are being developed in Ukraine. One of them is being developed at Lviv Institute of Cell Biology, the other at Palladin Institute of Biochemistry and the third at the private company Diaprof-Med.

The Cabinet of Ministers approved the allocation of UAH 100 million for the program to resume vaccine production.

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