First, talks with Pfizer and other Western vaccine makers to obtain early shipments collapsed after the Trump administration banned vaccine exports. Now, unless the incoming Biden administration steps in, the earliest commercial purchases of Western vaccines will not be delivered before late 2021. Not surprisingly, Ukraine’s plight has caught the eye of Russia’s state-controlled news outlets, which have highlighted the failure of Ukraine’s Western allies to step up in a moment of need — and offering Russia’s vaccine as an alternative. “Russia, as always, uses this in its hybrid war, as an information weapon,” Maksym Stepanov, Ukraine’s health minister, said of the country’s effort to inoculate its population. Negotiations for Western shipments later in the year are continuing, Stepanov said.

Source: bd News24 January 10, 2021 07:07 UTC