Kazakhstan on Tuesday launched its own, domestically-developed vaccine for mass inoculations against Covid-19, starting with popular locations such as shopping malls.
Nearly a million people in the former Soviet republic of 19 million people have already received the Russian-developed Sputnik V vaccine, which Kazakhstan imports and produces domestically.
The Central Asian republic’s sovereign wealth fund has also ordered a million doses of Chinese-developed Sinopharm vaccine.
But this week, the oil-exporting country made its own vaccine for the general public, and Health Minister Alexei Tsoi received a shot in front of the media.
Like Sputnik V, the QazVac vaccine is administered in two injections 3 weeks apart.
QazVac is currently in a phase 3 trial that will end until July. The other 222 people who participated in the first two stages developed immunity to Covid-19, with no primary side effects reported, according to its Kazakh developer, the Institute for Research on Biosafety Problems.
At Mega Park, one of the top grocery shopping spots in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, QazVac was the only option available Tuesday. Most people queuing to get vaccinated said they didn’t care about the vaccine’s logo.
“We didn’t arrive in time for Sputnik (but) I don’t think there is any difference between Sputnik and QazVac,” said a young woman who gave only her first name, Madina.
“We’re making plans to move to Georgia and we’re getting vaccinated so we don’t have bad health (with Covid-19) there. “
Officials have said domestic development of a vaccine has put Kazakhstan in an elite club of pharmaceutically advanced nations, but acknowledged issues with scaling up production and said they were discussing “bottling” the shot in Turkey.
Kazakhstan has reported more than 360,000 Covid-19 cases and 4,381 deaths since the start of the global pandemic early last year.
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