KYIV, April 3 - Ukraine has approved China's Sinovac vaccine to fight the coronavirus pandemic, the health ministry said on Saturday, after the country recorded a record rise in new COVID-19 cases for the second day in a row, Reuters reported.

Ukraine received its first batch of 215,000 Sinovac doses in March to boost its vaccination program, which has lagged behind many other European countries and it has so far relied on a single batch of AstraZeneca vaccines from India.