KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine has launched a COVID-19 vaccination campaign Wednesday in hopes of halting the spread of the coronavirus that has put a significant strain on the country’s teetering health care system. Medical workers and military personnel in different regions were the first to get their shots of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Wednesday. A delivery of 500,000 doses arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday. Authorities plan to vaccinate about 35% of the country’s 41-million population this year. Officials said the first vaccine supplies will be administered to medical workers and military personnel in eastern Ukraine, where a conflict with Russian-backed separatists has been ongoing since 2014, and to regions of western Ukraine where infection rates have been highest.
