KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – After receiving the first shipment of coronavirus vaccine, Ukraine found itself in a new pandemic fight, persuading its people very reluctant to receive the shot.
Although infections are rising sharply, Ukrainians are increasingly opposed to vaccination: an opinion poll published earlier this month by the International Institute of Sociology in Kiev found that 60% of the population of the country does not want to be vaccinated, compared to 40% a month earlier. The 1,207 national survey had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.
Resistance seems to be rooted in the long-standing suspicion of Soviet-era vaccines, amplified by politicians’ allegations of low-quality vaccines, corruption scandals and widespread misinformation on social media. Even more surprising, reluctance still appears even among those most at risk who administer other life-saving medications daily to other people: medical workers.
In the mining town of Selydove, 700 kilometers (420 miles) east of Kiev, only 5% of medical staff agreed to be vaccinated. Among the people in decline was Olena Obyedko, a 26-year-old nurse who works in the hospital’s intensive care unit for patients with COVID-19, where people die every week.
“I decided not to get vaccinated. I doubt the quality of the vaccine. I’m afraid there will be side effects, ”he said.
So few people chose to get the shots that the mobile brigade that came to Selydove to administer them ended up vacating to prevent the vaccine from being wasted.
“Such a low number of vaccinated people is associated with low confidence in the vaccine that has entered Ukraine,” said Brigadier General Olena Marchenko about the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in India. “This is due to prejudices and information that spreads on social networks. People read a lot, they have a negative attitude towards the Indian vaccine ”.
Prominent politicians have fueled this suspicion.
Former President Petro Poroshenko told parliament this month that he asked doctors in one region why there was resistance to vaccination and told him, “Because they brought shit. And they took it because of corruption and incompetence ”.
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko added to the discontent by demanding that parliament pass a law to give government compensation to those suffering from vaccine side effects.
Vaccine corruption scandals had begun even before the first doses arrived in the country. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine reported that it has launched an investigation into a September agreement to buy 1.9 million doses of Chinese vaccine Sinovac at 504 hryvna ($ 18) per dose. Its Chinese manufacturers have not published full reports on its effectiveness and a study in Brazil said it has only 50% efficiency.
“What these attacks bring are consequences that will affect all Ukrainians,” said Health Minister Maxim Stepanov. “We are talking about an attempt to break the vaccination campaign in Ukraine.”
Ukraine received its first shipment of vaccines – 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca – in late February. However, only about 23,500 people have been vaccinated since then.
In this same period, up to 10,000 new infections a day have been recorded. Overall, the country of 41 million has recorded 1.4 million infections and more than 28,000 deaths.
The Health Minister says only about 40% of medical workers treating coronavirus patients have agreed to receive the vaccine.
Speaking to parliament, Oleksandr Kornienko, a prominent member of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s People’s Servant faction, said the medical facilities were forced to destroy many doses of the vaccine, which could only be stored for a few hours afterwards. to open a vial, because no medical professionals were presented who had been prescribed vaccines.
“Now they are forced to destroy the coveted vaccine, because they don’t give it to people in time,” Kornienko said.
Zelenskiy, who contracted the virus in November, tried to encourage vaccination by publicly firing a shot.
“The vaccine will allow us to live again without restrictions,” Zelensky said. “I think this vaccine is high quality, it’s one of the best in the world.”
Still, his action seems to have had little effect.
The country designated 14,000 doses of its first shipment of vaccines to the military, especially those fighting separatists backed by Russia in the east. But only 1,030 troops have been vaccinated so far.
In the front-line town of Krasnohorivka, soldiers widely refused to be vaccinated.
“I have little faith in a pandemic, I don’t think it’s some kind of serious illness,” said Serhiy Kochuk, a 25-year-old soldier. “I am healthy, but the vaccine can cause disease. Because of this vaccine you can get sick. “
The head of the Kiev Institute of Sociology, Volodymyr Paniotto, told The Associated Press that a recent decline in popularity of the Zelenskiy government has contributed to vaccine resistance.
“The super critical attitude of the Ukrainians towards the authorities overlapped with the struggle of politicians and the information war, which provoked a massive distrust in society,” he said.
Ukrainians have been skeptical about any vaccine since Soviet times. In 2019, the country had the largest measles outbreak in Europe due to widespread refusals to receive a measles vaccine.
“For the past twenty years, Ukraine has been one of the most opposed European countries to vaccination as such,” said Vadym Denysenko, an analyst at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future.
The United Nations Development Program says the country suffers from “demographic information” of disinformation about the vaccine and has called on the government to step up its fight.
“Conspiracy theories, rumors and malicious misinformation can quickly go viral on social media, especially when there is a low level of public trust in state institutions,” he said.
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Mstyslav Chernov in Selydove, Ukraine, and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this story.
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