The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) is investigating possible foul play in Ukraine’s procurement of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine at inflated prices.
Despite the presence of much cheaper and more effective alternatives, the Ministry of Health chose to buy 1.9 million doses from China’s Sinovac Biotech through a Ukrainian intermediary under unclear circumstances. The ministry later made deals to buy from other manufacturers as well.
“We will try to carry out these investigations as soon as possible and, if there are grounds, to hold those who involved (in the wrongdoing) liable,” Artem Sytnyk, head of the NABU, said in a statement. The bureau has a department dedicated to investigating the health ministry.
According to NABU, the case may involve abuse of power that caused serious consequences.
Maksym Hryshchuk, acting head of Ukraine’s Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, confirmed that an investigation is ongoing at a news briefing on Feb. 10 but refused to disclose other details, citing the secrecy of the investigation.
At first, state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine planned to make a deal with the Serum Institute of India, which can produce vaccines developed by British pharmaceutical AstraZeneca with Oxford University and by U.S. biotech company Novavax. The price was just $3 per dose.
However, in December, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov sidelined Medical Procurement, claiming it had done bad work in the past year. Instead, he announced that U.K. company Crown Agents would handle the purchase of vaccines.
Soon, Ukraine signed a contract with Sinovac to buy its vaccine for about $18 per dose.
“The published purchase price of one dose of the vaccine became nearly the highest in the world,” NABU’s civil oversight council said in a statement.
The purchases would go through Lekhim, a Ukrainian pharmaceutical, which was chosen as an intermediary.
It’s unclear why Lekhim was chosen. Stepanov reportedly said that Sinovac wanted to deal with Lekhim directly. But when Ukrainian journalists contacted Sinovac, the company said it only deals with states and it was the Ukrainian government that suggested working with Lekhim.
Furthermore, Sinovac’s product showed itself to be considerably less effective than several other vaccines in clinical trials. Last stage testing in Brazil showed an overall efficacy of just 50.38%. Novavax’s vaccine demonstrated 89.3% in U.K. trials.
Ukraine has recently announced that it will buy the vaccines developed by Oxford, AstraZeneca and Novavax and produced by Serum Institute after all. U.K. company Crown Agents will procure 12 million doses for the country.
Separately, Ukraine will get 8 million free doses from the global coronavirus vaccine alliance, COVAX. Ukraine will receive the first 117,000 doses of U.S. Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in mid-February.
