Kazakhstan on Tuesday introduced its own locally developed vaccine for mass inoculations against Covid-19, in popular places such as grocery shopping malls.
Nearly a million people in this 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 ordered one million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine developed in China.
But this week, the oil-exporting country made its own vaccine available to the general public, with Healthcare Minister Alexei Tsoi receiving a jab in front of the media.
Like Sputnik V, the QazVac vaccine is delivered in two shots with a three-week interval.
QazVac is currently in phase 3 testing which 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 Research Institute of Biological Safety Problems.
At Mega Park, one of the major buying groceries spots in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, QazVac the only option to be had Tuesday. Most other folks waiting in line to get vaccinated said the logo of vaccine did not matter to them.
“We haven’t arrived in time for Sputnik (but) I think there is some 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 there (with Covid-19). “
Officials said domestic progress on a vaccine had placed Kazakhstan in an elite club of pharmaceutically complex countries, but claimed they were expanding production and said they were discussing “bottling” the vaccine in Turkey.
Kazakhstan has reported more than 360,000 Covid-19 cases and 4,381 deaths since the global pandemic began early last year.
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