Kiev, Ukraine (AP) – After receiving its first coronavirus vaccine shipment, Ukraine has found itself in a new pandemic battle – convincing its highly reluctant people to catch fire.
Although infections are rising sharply, Ukrainians are increasingly opposed to vaccination: an opinion poll released earlier this month by the International Institute of Sociology in Kiev found that 60% of people in the country do not want to be vaccinated. 40% a month earlier. The national survey of 1,207 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’ accusations of low-quality vaccines, corruption and misinformation scandals spread through social media. Even more surprisingly, reluctance continues to occur even among those most at risk who administer life-saving drugs to other people on a daily basis: 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 those who fell 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, “she said.
So few people chose to receive the shots that the mobile brigade that came to Selydove to administer them ended up vaccinating themselves so as not to let the vaccine get lost.
“Such a low number of vaccinated people is associated with a low confidence in the vaccine that entered Ukraine,” said brigade chief Olena Marchenko about the AstraZeneca vaccine made in India. “This is due to the prejudices and information that are spread on social networks. People read a lot, they have a negative attitude towards the Indian vaccine. ”
Notable politicians fueled that suspicion.
Former President Petro Poroshenko told parliament this month that he had asked doctors in a region why there was resistance to vaccination and was told: “Because they brought shit. And they brought it because of corruption and incompetence. “
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko added dissatisfaction by asking parliament to pass a law to provide government compensation to those facing side effects of the vaccine.
Vaccine corruption scandals had begun just before the first doses arrived in the country. The National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine reported that it has begun an investigation into a September agreement to purchase 1.9 million doses of Chinese Sinovac vaccine at 504 hryvnia ($ 18) per dose. Chinese manufacturers have not published full reports on its effectiveness and a study in Brazil said it has an efficiency of only 50%.
“What leads to these attacks are consequences that will affect every Ukrainian,” said Health Minister Maxim Stepanov. “We are talking about an attempt to interrupt the vaccination campaign in Ukraine.”
Ukraine received its first transport of vaccine – 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca – in late February. However, only about 23,500 people have been vaccinated since then.
During the same period, up to 10,000 new infections were recorded per day. Overall, the 41 million country recorded 1.4 million infections and more than 28,000 deaths.
The health minister says only about 40% of health workers treating coronavirus patients have agreed to receive the vaccine.
Speaking in parliament, Oleksandr Kornienko, a leading member of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s People’s Servant, said medical facilities had been forced to destroy many doses of vaccine – which could only be kept a few hours after opening a bottle – because medical professionals no vaccinations were prescribed.
“Now they are forced to destroy the coveted vaccine because they fail to give it to people on time,” Kornienko said.
Zelenskiy, who contracted the virus in November, tried to encourage vaccinations by getting himself 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.”
However, his action seems to have had little effect.
The country has designated 14,000 doses of its first vaccine shipment for the military, especially for those fighting separatists backed by eastern Russia. But only 1,030 soldiers have been vaccinated so far.
In the first-line town of Krasnohorivka, soldiers widely refused vaccination.
“I have little faith in a pandemic, I don’t think it’s a 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 the Zelenskiy government’s popularity has contributed to vaccine resistance.
“The super-critical attitude of Ukrainians towards the authorities has overlapped with the struggle of politicians and the information war, which has led to massive distrust in society,” he said.
Ukrainians have been skeptical of any vaccination since the Soviet era. In 2019, the country had the largest outbreak of measles in Europe due to widespread refusals to obtain a measles vaccine.
“For the past 20 years, Ukraine has been among 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 is suffering from an “info-demic” of vaccine misinformation and called on the government to step up its fight.
“Conspiracy theories, rumors and malicious misinformation can quickly go viral on social networks, especially when there is a low level of public trust in state institutions,” he said.
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Mstyslav Chernov from Selydove, Ukraine and Jim Heintz from Moscow contributed to this story.
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