Ukraine's parliament fires health minister over COVID vaccine shortage
- 3 years ago
Ukraine's parliament voted on Tuesday to fire Health Minister Maksym Stepanov, accusing him of failing to supply adequate vaccine doses to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ukraine is among the European countries most affected by the pandemic and has lagged in its vaccination efforts, with only 948,330 Ukrainians having received their first vaccine dose as of May 18 out of a population of around 41 million.
"The main task that the minister faced for 2021 was vaccination and the provision of Ukraine with a sufficient amount of vaccines in the first half of this year. Progress on this issue is very slow," Prime Minister Denys Shmygal told parliament. Shmygal last week formally asked parliament to sack Stepanov.
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