EU sets up distribution centres on Ukraine border for refugees needing care

FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian refugees board a train bound to Krakow, at Przemysl Glowny train station, after fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland, March 26, 2022. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

The European Union is setting up centres on its borders to Ukraine to receive and distribute refugees in need of healthcare to member states best placed for treating them, the EU health commissioner said on Tuesday.

"We are working closely with Member States and (the World Health Organization's Europe office) to set up triage hubs directly at the border for patients in the most affected Member States to speed up the transfers," Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said ahead of a meeting of EU health ministers on Tuesday.

FILE PHOTO: European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides delivers a speech on the EU's Role in Combatting the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic and How to Vaccinate the World, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, November 24, 2021. Julien Warnand/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

United Nations data showed a week ago that more than 3.5 million people have fled abroad from Russia's attacks on Ukraine, leaving Eastern Europe scrambling to provide them with care.

Kyriakides said on Tuesday almost 4 million Ukrainians have left their homeland.

She added a plan unveiled two weeks ago to buy and distribute vaccines against measles, polio, tuberculosis and COVID-19 to immunise Ukrainian refugees and children in particular was now bearing fruit.

Kyriakides said the European Health Emergency preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) had secured 200,000 diphtheria and tetanus vaccine donations from drugmaker Sanofi for Ukraine and another around 70,000 vaccines would go to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Moldova via the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism.

(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)