The delivery of a next batch of AstraZeneca (CoviShield) vaccine to Ukraine may be postponed for a certain period due to the active information campaign that was launched against the Indian vaccine in our country, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Public Health, Medical Assistance and Medical Insurance Mykhailo Radutsky (the Servant of the People faction) said.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received a letter from the Indian Embassy, which emphasizes the inadmissibility of defamatory statements about India as a manufacturer of medicines and the AstraZeneca [CoviShield] vaccine supplied to Ukraine," Radutsky wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.

He said that, as noted by the Indian side, the AstraZeneca vaccine (CoviShield) is an absolutely safe and effective drug, which has been confirmed by the World Health Organization.

"Only in Europe and India, about 50 million doses of this vaccine have already been used. Significant volumes of the drug have been contracted by countries such as Canada, Great Britain, Brazil and others," the MP said.

He said that Ukraine has contracted 1.5 million doses of vaccine produced in India, but for the manufacturer "it is not a problem to transfer this batch to other customers", since the demand for vaccines in the world significantly exceeds the production capacity.

"According to my information, President Volodymyr Zelensky instructed Ministers Maksym Stepanov and Dmytro Kuleba to find additional ways to speed up the delivery of the next batch of CoviShield vaccine to Ukraine. The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine should do everything necessary as soon as possible to convince Indian partners that the state and Ukrainian society are not involved in discrediting the vaccine supplier," Radutsky said.

He said that both odious pro-Russian politicians and pseudo-patriotic political leaders who are doing everything to return to power, amid the destabilization of the country, worked to disrupt cooperation with India.

"We all remember the shameful statement of one of these figures, which he made during a meeting of the conciliation council of the Verkhovna Rada. It was a deliberate cynical game to disrupt the supply of vaccines and block the vaccination campaign. This man doomed thousands of Ukrainians to death in order to satisfy his own political ambitions," the MP said.

As previously reported, the first batch of 500,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca (CoviShield) vaccine was delivered to Ukraine on the morning of February 23.