Five vaccines out of 10 for planned immunization are currently available in Kyiv – Official

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Kyiv healthcare authorities get first batch of vaccines against infectious diseases and claim ready to start the first round of vaccination. State and civic actors quote figures that indicate vaccination progress over the past year including for polio.

Kyiv, April 27, 2016. There are five vaccines out of 10 for planned immunization currently available in Kyiv, said Fedir Lapiy, chief pediatric immunologist at the Main Kyiv Healthcare Department at a press-briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. “Out of these 10 vaccines what we currently have for Kyiv includes the vaccines against Hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella and polio required to start vaccination with inactivated polio vaccine,” said Lapiy. He said in the nearest time the BCG vaccines against tuberculosis are to come, in July the ones against whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus as well as the inactivated polio vaccine as part of the combined vaccine.

Natalia Vynnyk, infectious disease specialist, executive director of NGO “Immunization Shield for the Nation” noted that children are supposed to get three vaccines against polio before they turn one year. According to the doctor in 2015 the vaccination level for children under one year varied between 25.4 percent and 63.8 percent. Such level of vaccination engagement indicates individual protection only. “Unfortunately only 26.5 percent of children were vaccinated against whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus over the first year of their life. It means one third of children are protected against these dangerous diseases,” noted executive director of NGO “Immunization Shield for the Nation”. Among the reasons for that she named shortage of due number of vaccines for planned immune vaccination that arises from time to time. She also said some doctors do not have enough information on vaccination and parents sometimes mistrust the medicine that the state purchased.

Vaccination allowed winning the natural smallpox. The level of polio prevalence decreased by 99 percent, quoted statistics Nataliya Rybachyk, committee member of the NGO “Parents for Vaccination”. At the same time global mortality rate from measles decreased by 75 percent. “Over one million infants die annually from infectious diseases that could have been prevented by vaccination,” Rybachyk noted.