KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – After receiving its first shipment of coronavirus vaccine, Ukraine found itself in a new battle against the pandemic – convincing its widely reluctant people to take the photo.
Although infections are on the rise, Ukrainians are increasingly against vaccination: a poll released earlier this month by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 60% of people in the country do not want to be vaccinated, up from 40% a month earlier. . The national poll of 1,207 had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.
The opposition appears to be rooted in long-standing suspicion of vaccines dating back to the Soviet era, reinforced by politicians’ allegations of low-quality vaccines, corruption scandals and misinformation spread through social media. Even more surprising is that the reluctance is still present, even in those most at risk who administer life-saving drugs to others on a daily basis: medical workers.
In the mining town of Selydove, 700 kilometers (420 miles) east of Kiev, only 5% of medical personnel agreed to get vaccinated. Those who declined included Olena Obyedko, a 26-year-old nurse who works in the hospital’s intensive care unit for COVID-19 patients, 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 get the shots that the mobile brigade that came to Selydove to administer them gave themselves vaccinations so as not to waste the vaccine.
“Such a low number of people vaccinated is linked to low confidence in the vaccine entering Ukraine,” said Brigade Chief Olena Marchenko of the AstraZeneca vaccine produced in India. “This is due to prejudices and information that is spread on social networks. People read a lot, they are negative about the Indian vaccine. “
Leading politicians have fed that suspicion.
Former President Petro Poroshenko said in parliament this month that he 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 to the discontent by demanding that parliament pass a law to indemnify the government for those dealing with side effects from vaccines.
Vaccine corruption scandals had started before the first doses arrived in the country. Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau reported that it had begun an investigation into a deal in September to purchase 1.9 million doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine at 504 hryvna ($ 18) per dose. The Chinese makers have not released full reports of its efficacy, and a study in Brazil said it has only 50% efficiency.
“What these attacks lead to are the consequences that will affect every Ukrainian,” said Health Minister Maxim Stepanov. “We are talking about an attempt to disrupt the vaccination campaign in Ukraine.”
Ukraine received its first shipment of vaccine – 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca at the end of February. Yet only about 23,500 people have been vaccinated since then.
During the same period, no fewer than 10,000 new infections were registered per day. In total, the country has recorded 1.4 million infections and more than 28,000 deaths of 41 million.
The health minister says only about 40% of medical workers treating coronavirus patients have consented to the vaccine.
Oleksandr Kornienko, a leading member of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People faction, said in parliament that medical facilities were forced to destroy many doses of the vaccine – which can be kept just a few hours after a vial is opened – because the medical professionals who had received vaccinations did not show up.
“Now they are forced to destroy the coveted vaccine because they do not give it to the people in time,” said Kornienko.
Zelenskiy, who contracted the virus in November, tried to encourage vaccinations by publicly injecting herself.
“The vaccine allows us to live without restrictions,” said Zelensky. “I believe this vaccine is of a high quality, it is one of the best in the world.”
Still, his action seems to have had little effect.
The country assigned 14,000 doses of its first vaccine shipment to the military, especially those fighting against Russian-backed separatists in the east. But so far only 1,030 troops have been vaccinated.
In the town of Krasnohorivka on the front line, soldiers refused to vaccinate on a large scale.
“I have little faith in a pandemic, I don’t think it’s some serious illness,” said Serhiy Kochuk, a 25-year-old soldier. “I am healthy, but the vaccine can cause illness. This vaccine can make you sick. “
The head of the Kiev sociology institute, Volodymyr Paniotto, told The Associated Press that a recent decline in the popularity of Zelenskiy’s government has contributed to vaccine resistance.
“The supercritical attitude of Ukrainians towards the authorities was superimposed on the struggles of politicians and the information war, leading to enormous distrust in society,” he said.
Ukrainians have been skeptical of vaccinations since Soviet times. In 2019, the country had the largest measles outbreak in Europe due to widespread refusals to receive a measles vaccine.
“Over the past 20 years, Ukraine has been one of the European countries most opposed 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 “infodemic” of misinformation about the vaccine and has called on the government to step up its fight.
“Conspiracy theories, rumors and malicious disinformation can quickly go viral on social media, especially when public trust in state institutions is low,” he said.
Mstyslav Chernov in Selydove, Ukraine, and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this story.
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