Health care workers will be the first to receive the free vaccine.
The Republic of Kazakhstan is preparing to start a mass vaccination campaign in February next year. The Russian-made vaccine Sputnik V will be used in this large-scale health care event. Vaccine production would soon start in Karaganda, Kazinform reported on December 22.
The pharmaceutical plant in Karaganda is chosen as a Sputnik V vaccine manufacturing facility. The plant has produced and sent the first vaccine samples to Moscow, where they will be tested for quality and safety. As was reported, Gam-COVID-Vac combined vector vaccine against the coronavirus infection, later trade-named as Sputnik V, was created at N. Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in the Russian Federation.
Deputy Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Control Committee at the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nurlybek Asylbekov said that the ‘panacea’ would be distributed to health care institutions in Kazakhstan. Doctors and other medical staff will be the first to receive the vaccine. Teachers, students, law enforcement officers and people with chronic conditions are second in line.
The final and uniform cost for the vaccine has not been determined in Kazakhstan so far. The agreement between the leaders of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation in November this year made it possible to start joint vaccine production on the territory of Kazakhstan.