The President of Kazakhstan wanted to know why only 0.1% of the population had been vaccinated after 2 months.
On April 1, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev held a meeting on the difficult epidemic situation in the country. He noted that the tide of discontent was rising in the society and citizens were dissatisfied with the work of the executive bodies, the press office of Akorda reported.
The difficult situation had been caused by the lack of vaccines. Raising serious claims to the officials, Tokayev said the instructions to purchase vaccines had been given several times since the summer of 2020. All that time, the Cabinet of Ministers had been assuring that Sputnik V and the domestic vaccine would fully meet the country’s needs. Based on this information, the vaccination campaign was launched in the country on February 1, but less than 0.1% of citizens had been vaccinated after 2 months.
The President said he had to accept economically suboptimal conditions to accelerate the deliveries and regulate urgently the agreements on additional supplies with the leaders of other states.
Tokayev emphasised that vaccination was an important state matter, equated to national security, and therefore, control over vaccination should be as strict as possible. The President instructed the Minister of Health to improve the situation within the current month, noting that otherwise personnel decisions, which would disappoint not only the Minister, but also the Government, would be made.
