Covid vaccine effort emerges for incoming Ukrainian refugees

As Ukrainian refugees settle in the Seattle area, an effort is underway to get them vaccinated against Covid.

Tatiana Diachuk is a nurse and a volunteer with the Nashi Immigrants Health Board. She spent Saturday educating refugees and the Ukrainian community about vaccines at an event hosted by the group.

Diachuk says it's important to build trust with this community because they tend to prefer holistic medicine and are hesitant about vaccines. She says that hesitancy also is due to the fact that the vaccines offered in Ukraine were from China and cheaper than many other shots.

"There is definitely lower trust for vaccines that come in from other countries like China regarding, is it safe enough? Are the ingredients approved?" Diachuk said. "So when we say its an American vaccine, we say, 'Hey, its approved here by the standard exist in the United States. So its kind of a high bar.”

Diachuk says some got their first vaccine ever. And she says she was surprised by the high demand for children's vaccines.