Located in the epicentre of Europe’s latest COVID-19 surge, Ukraine now ranks third in the world for daily COVID-19 mortality. The country continues to record daily highs of new infections and deaths, resulting in adaptive quarantine measures throughout most of Ukraine. The situation in Ukraine has stressed Ukraine’s medical system to the breaking point, particularly in eastern Ukraine, where hospital congestion is the highest in the country at almost 90%. More than 80,000 deaths and more than 3 million infections have been recorded in Ukraine. Of those patients that were hospitalized with COVID-19, 94.2% were found to be unvaccinated.
Ukraine is dealing with persistent challenges while attempting to implement adaptive quarantine and other public-health measures. Widespread vaccine skepticism, fueled by domestic misinformation and foreign disinformation flowing from malign actors such as the Russian Federation, has created numerous challenges for Ukraine’s Ministry of Health. In addition, the Ukrainian government has had to implement stiff criminal penalties for anyone caught with falsified vaccination certification owing to lucrative black market schemes. With less than 20% of its population fully vaccinated, Ukraine has one of the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates in Europe.
In response to this crisis, the Canada-Ukraine Foundation has launched the “UKRAINE COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE PROGRAM” to raise $125,000 for targeted assistance in Ukraine.
The UKRAINE COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE PROGRAM comprises the following three projects:
• CUF is continuing to support and expand the delivery of oxygen therapy to COVID-19 patients through our partners in Ukraine. In addition to the original CUF purchase of 20 Oxygen (O2) concentrators and 3 continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices, the expansion now includes the procurement of 17 additional O2 concentrators, 7 CPAP devices, consumable oxygen masks, personal protective equipment, and other operating costs.
• CUF plans to support pandemic relief of the hospital network in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine, by covering the freight costs of a 40-foot shipping container from Denver, USA, to Dnipro. The container will be stocked with donated ICU beds, oxygen-therapy supplies and other critical medical equipment.
• CUF is also planning an expansion of its ongoing COVID-19 pandemic relief to Eastern Ukraine with input from the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Cluster and the United Nations’ Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA).
The Canada-Ukraine Foundation has allocated $25,000 USD from its reserves to start the campaign and encourages the Ukrainian-Canadian and Ukrainian-American communities to contribute to this critical program, thus providing rapid and effective assistance to those in critical condition.
Organizations, corporations and individuals are welcome to support CUF in this effort with financial or relevant material donations. Contributions may be made online at CUF’s donation page or by contacting the Canada-Ukraine Foundation.
Donations are welcome from worldwide sources. At this time we are able to provide charitable tax receipts for Canadian and US donors.