{"id":40207,"date":"2021-04-27T15:51:58","date_gmt":"2021-04-27T13:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/?p=40207"},"modified":"2021-04-27T15:57:40","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T13:57:40","slug":"covid-19-kazakhstan-starts-rollout-of-its-qazvac-jab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/kazakhstan\/covid-19-kazakhstan-starts-rollout-of-its-qazvac-jab\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Kazakhstan starts rollout of its QazVac jab"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This Monday 26 April, Kazakhstan started rolling out its homegrown Covid-19 vaccine, QazVac. A symbol of Kazakhstan’s scientific potential, QazVac should eventually lead to a significant increase in vaccinations in the country. Its production also marks new cooperation with Turkey.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally published on Novastan’s French website<\/a> on 26 April 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a first in Central Asia. On Monday 26 April 2021, Kazakhstan’s health minister Alexei Tsoi received one of the first injections of the QazVac vaccine against coronavirus, Kazinform reports<\/a>. This vaccine was produced and developed in Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n\n\n

Want more Central Asia in your inbox? Subscribe to our newsletter here.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently 50,000 doses of QazVac are planned. This is enough to vaccinate 25,000 people, with two doses 21 days apart. The start of this campaign fulfills Kazakh President Qassym-Jomart Toqaev’s October 2020 commitment<\/a> to a Kazakh vaccine. Combined with an app-based colour-coded immunity status check<\/a> to enter venues, it should allow a gradual resumption of activity in the areas heavily affected by the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A complement to the Russian vaccine<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Kazakhstan has already started vaccination with the Russian Sputnik V jab, which it has secured<\/a> 2 million doses of and is now manufacturing domestically. In addition, as the Kazakh media outlet Tengrinews<\/a> reports, Kazakhstan ordered 3 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine on 26 March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An additional 50,000 doses of the QazVac vaccine will be produced in May, Deputy Prime Minister Eraly To\u01f5janov said<\/a> in a statement published on the prime minister’s website. QazVac production should gradually increase to 500,000-600,000 doses per month, the statement added<\/a><\/a>. QazVac production is currently installed in a plant in the Qorda\u0131 district<\/a>, in the south, while Sputnik V is manufactured<\/a> in Qara\u01f5andy, Kazakhstan’s fourth city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of few countries producing its own vaccine<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

With QazVac, Kazakhstan joins the very select club of countries that have developed their own vaccine against Covid-19<\/a>, comprising the US, China, Russia, the UK, Cuba and India. QazVac was developed by the Kazakh Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems. It was approved<\/a> by the World Health Organisation (WHO). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u00fansul\u00fd Zakar\u0131a, the director of research institute that developed the vaccine, said QazVac was reliable and effective against Covid-19 variants. It is based on the messenger RNA model, like the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, and has demonstrated high immunostimulant activity, Kazinform explains<\/a>, quoting the researcher. It can be stored between 2 and 8\u00b0C, which will greatly facilitate its transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vaccines: a strategic question<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Large-scale QazVac production on Kazakhstan’s territory is not expected to begin before the end of the year. Meanwhile, the country is looking for partners: the Kazakh jab is bottled in Turkey, KazInform reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes after Kazakhstan\u2019s foreign minister Muhtar T\u0131leuberd\u0131<\/a> visited Ankara, where he discussed military, economic, cultural and medical subjects, on 17 March<\/a>. Kazakhstan could thus make use of Turkish production sites to reach its production goal of 500,000 to 600,000 QazVac doses monthly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more: <\/strong>Kazakhstan\u2019s second lockdown told by those who lived it<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkey, which mainly uses Sinovac and the German Pfizer-BioNTech for its vaccination campaign, could diversify its vaccine supply. At the same time, it would strengthen its ties with Kazakhstan in a bid to form new alliances and break out of its relative diplomatic isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kazakhstan has not yet indicated any desire to export QazVac to its regional neighbours. The government has indicated that the priority remains the vaccination of its population, Zona.kz reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leo Friedrich<\/strong>
Novastan.org<\/p>\n\n\n

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, Telegram<\/a>, Linkedin<\/a> or Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Monday 26 April, Kazakhstan started rolling out its homegrown Covid-19 vaccine, QazVac. A symbol of Kazakhstan’s scientific potential, QazVac should eventually lead to a significant increase in vaccinations in the country. Its production also marks new cooperation with Turkey. This article was originally published on Novastan’s French website on 26 April 2021. It’s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":984,"featured_media":40208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3544,3610,3980,470,4198],"coauthors":[3992],"class_list":["post-40207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kazakhstan","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-health","tag-kazakhstan","tag-vaccine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/984"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45784,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40207\/revisions\/45784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40207"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=40207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}