NUR-SULTAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd December, 2020) SULTAN, December 2 (Sputnik) - Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Wednesday that a facility for the production of the Russian vaccine against the coronavirus disease would be built in Kazakhstan in the near future.
On November 11, Tokayev and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone conversation on boosting cooperation against the pandemic. According to the Kremlin, the leaders discussed a plan to launch joint vaccine production in Kazakhstan. On November 16, Tokayev said that he had reached an agreement with Putin on building a production facility for the purpose.
"I would like to express my gratitude to you, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, for your assistance in overcoming the pandemic. As a follow-up to our agreement, the plant for the production of the Russian vaccine will be built in Kazakhstan in the very near future," Tokayev said during the online summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia emerged as a leader in vaccine development, as two of its products, Sputnik V, developed by Moscow's Gamaleya Institute, and EpiVacCorona, developed by Siberia's research center Vector, are already in the Phase 3 trials. Another vaccine, by the Chumakov research center of the Russian academy of Sciences, will begin Phase 3 trials early in 2021. The clinical trials of the trailblazer Sputnik V vaccine have demonstrated that its efficacy rate is over 90 percent.
