Kazakhstan has rolled out its homegrown coronavirus vaccine, with the central Asian country’s health minister receiving the jab on live television. QazCovid-in, also known as QazVac, is a two-shot vaccine that is in third-stage trials, The Guardian reports.
Agence France-Presse reports that state broadcaster Khabar said 50,000 doses of the vaccine developed by the state-backed Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems have been distributed across the country.
Health minister Alexei Tsoi told Khabar he felt «well» after receiving his shot and said the government was negotiating with partners in Turkey to produce future batches of the vaccine.
In a tweet last week, Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev hailed the former Soviet republic’s achievement in becoming «one of the few states» to develop and produce a national vaccine.
Kazakhstan became the first foreign country to produce Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine earlier this year, and the Russian jab has dominated the mass inoculation drive in the nation of nearly 19 million people.
Links to media coverage on the topic (in English):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/apr/26/coronavirus-live-news-india-daily-cases-top-300000-for-fifth-straight-day-greece-adds-countries-to-no-quarantine-list?page=with:block-608664858f08505668d9b80e
https://www.inform.kz/en/kazakhstan-begins-rollout-of-homegrown-qazvac-vaccine-the-guardian_a3781499
https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/coronavirus-vacunas_kazajist%C3%A1n-comienza-la-vacunaci%C3%B3n-con-su-propio-preparado–qazvac/46565806
French:
https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/covid-19-le-kazakhstan-lance-sa-campagne-d-inoculation-avec-son-vaccin-national-20210426
Spanish:
https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/coronavirus-vacunas_kazajist%C3%A1n-comienza-la-vacunaci%C3%B3n-con-su-propio-preparado–qazvac/46565806
