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| - Ukraine on Wednesday launched a nationwide campaign to inoculate its population against the coronavirus following several delays that sparked anger against the government in one of Europe's poorest countries. The ex-Soviet republic of 40 million people has struggled to keep up with countries in the region to source vaccines and begin inoculating its population. Oleksandr Skichko, the governor of the central Cherkasy region, announced that Ukraine's vaccine rollout had officially begun Wednesday after a medical professional in his region was given the jab. "We have vaccinated the first doctor," Skichko said. Ukraine received 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine on Tuesday, marketed under the name Covishield and produced at the Serum Institute in India. Health Minister Maksym Stepanov told reporters earlier Wednesday that the first of those doses had been dispatched to regions outside the capital. His ministry has set out a five-stage jab rollout beginning with 367,000 people in priority groups who will be administered the vaccine by mobile teams. The first group includes healthcare workers treating Covid-19 patients and the elderly with chronic illnesses. The ministry said vaccinations will be voluntary. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had faced criticism for failing to obtain vaccines for his country whose ageing public health system has been under strain during the pandemic. Health officials have so far recorded over 1.3 million cases and more than 25,000 deaths from the virus. Zelensky blamed the delay on wealthier Western countries which he said had reserved the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in bulk. He has urged the EU to help eastern European countries. His government originally announced it would begin its vaccination campaign in mid-February, but that date was pushed back after the arrival of vaccines was delayed. Ukraine is awaiting delivery of eight million doses under the global Covax programme. It has said it also secured a total 17 million doses of vaccines developed by Novavax and AstraZeneca, including the 500,000 that arrived Tuesday. And it has signed a contract to receive 1.9 million doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine. The government earlier this month banned the use of one of the most popular vaccines in former Soviet republics, the Russian-developed Sputnik jab, describing the vaccine has having been produced by an "aggressor". Ukraine's army has been fighting Russian-backed separatists since 2014 when Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula. Separatist authorities said earlier they had begun inoculating residents of the two breakaway regions using Sputnik V. dg/jbr/gd
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