On April 20, 2021, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine registered the vaccine against COVID-19 AstraZeneca-SKBio for emergency medical use.

It is a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, which is produced in the Republic of Korea (SK Bioscience Co. Ltd) and has the trade name AstraZeneca-SKBio.

The AstraZeneca emergency vaccine has already been approved by the World Health Organization, and has been approved by the United Kingdom, the European Union, India and Canada.

Ukraine has a law that simplifies the procedure for registering COVID-19 vaccines and reduces it to five days.

Let us remind you that AstraZeneca / Covishield vaccine, manufactured by the Indian Serum Institute, is already being vaccinated in Ukraine. All AstraZeneca vaccines against COVID-19, regardless of the country of manufacture, are interchangeable. AstraZeneca vaccine (AZD1222) manufactured by the Indian Serum Institute (Covishield) and a vaccine manufactured by the South Korean company SK Bioscience Co Ltd. (AstraZeneca-SKBio), are identical in composition and manufacturing technology, are not considered as different vaccines and are interchangeable.

On April 22, Ukraine expects to deliver 367,000 doses of AstraZeneca-SKBio vaccine as part of the COVAX global initiative. Part of the batch will be left for vaccination with the second dose of those citizens who have already been vaccinated AstraZeneca / CoviShield, the rest - used for the first vaccination.

Ukraine received information from COVAX on the supply of 2.2 to 3.7 million doses of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccines in the first and second quarters of 2021. In addition, this vaccine will be purchased at public expense directly from the manufacturers.