The readiness of Kazakhstan and Russia in the near future to come to mutual recognition of national electronic vaccination passports over the past six months has been repeatedly spoken at the highest level. In September, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry reported on the ongoing successful negotiations with Russia on this issue. In October, President Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev made an appeal to speed up the process of mutual recognition of vaccination passports with all CIS countries. Finally, at the end of the last month of autumn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the high probability of mutual recognition of vaccination certificates with a number of countries.
Kazakhstan is ready. And Russia?
It was expected that by early December 2021 the process of mutual recognition of Kazakhstani and Russian vaccination passports would be completed. But the then Minister of Health of Kazakhstan Aleksey Tsoi, a few days before his resignation, admitted that negotiations with Russia had not yet been completed. “On the part of Kazakhstan, the readiness is 100%. On the part of Russia, the issues of legislative regulation are now being worked out,” Tsoi said.
“You see that already 24 countries have mutually recognized vaccination passports with Kazakhstan. Among them are the Czech Republic, Canada. Negotiations are underway with Russia. Our partners promise that the issue will be resolved in the near future. It does not depend on our side. All regulatory documents are from Kazakhstan. ready, we have worked out the mechanism, “- said Alexei Tsoi at a meeting with journalists on December 9.
On December 29, the country’s chief sanitary doctor Aizhan Esmagambetova, commenting on the DW Kazakhstani-Russian negotiations, said that the issue has not yet been resolved: “The negotiations are continuing. At the moment, the topic of information systems integration is being considered.” Earlier, in an interview with Kazakh publications, Aizhan Esmagambetova noted: “The Russian Federation now does not recognize any passport, anyone’s, not a single country in the world. That is, Kazakhstan is no exception to the rules … This is the general approach of the Russian Federation to all countries, despite the fact that Sputnik V is now being delivered to 70 countries of the world. “
What vaccines are available in Kazakhstan
Five vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus have been registered in Kazakhstan. This is the Comirnaty vaccine produced by BioNTech / Pfizer, which is currently only available for adolescents from the age of 14, as well as for pregnant and lactating women. Chinese vaccine CoronaVac. Arabic-Chinese Sinopharm-Hayat-Vac. The QazVac vaccine developed by Kazakhstani virologists, as well as the Russian Sputnik V . In July, a single-component Russian vaccine, Sputnik Light, was registered. But so far there is no such vaccine in Kazakhstan.
Of all the listed vaccines, Sputnik V is the most accessible and popular among Kazakhstanis. In her commentary to DW, the chief sanitary doctor of Kazakhstan, Aizhan Esmagambetova, noted that out of 8 million 965 thousand Kazakhstanis vaccinated with the first component of the antiviral vaccine against COVID-19, 67.6% opted for the Russian Sputnik V vaccine..
Russian vaccine “Sputnik V”
This is facilitated by two factors. Firstly, from February to April 2021, Sputnik V was the only vaccine available to the population of Kazakhstan in all vaccination centers without exception, which are open not only in polyclinics. Secondly, in addition to deliveries from Russia, production of Sputnik V has been established at the Karaganda pharmaceutical complex. In August 2021, it was reported that over 2 million doses of Sputnik V had already been produced in Karaganda for vaccination in Kazakhstan. According to information received from the regions, Sputnik V, together with the Kazakh QazVac, are still the only vaccines available at vaccination points in small towns and villages of Kazakhstan.
The number of people wishing to be vaccinated with “Sputnik V” is declining
Meanwhile, Moldir Zhanabaeva, a doctor at the vaccination point of one of the Almaty polyclinics, drew attention to the fact that the number of people wishing to be vaccinated with the Russian vaccine began to decrease. In an interview with DW, she noted that if in July of this year the overwhelming majority of people preferred the Sputnik V vaccine, now the most popular is the Arabic-Chinese vaccine Sinopharm, as well as BioNTech / Pfizer, which is not available to everyone.
Coronavirus vaccine
“Those who need it urgently are now usually vaccinated with Chinese vaccines. The Russian Sputnik V is also still popular, but not like it used to. Over the past two months, about 50% of our patients were vaccinated with the Russian vaccine,” the doctor said. According to Moldir Zhanabaeva, the choice of Kazakhstanis is influenced by the fact that the Russian vaccine has not yet been recognized by either the WHO or the EMA. And the presence in the Kazakhstani vaccination passport of a mark that a person has been vaccinated with “Sputnik V” does not give him any advantages during a trip to Russia.
What happens during a trip to the Russian Federation
One such example was given by the manager of one of the logistics companies in Kazakhstan, Svetlana Vasilyeva. She recently returned from a trip to her Moscow relatives. “It seems incredible, but it’s a fact – in Russia they wanted to sneeze on Kazakhstani vaccination passports! If you want to come there, take a far from cheap PCR test and without fail upload its electronic version to the Travel Without COVID-19 application. do not forget to take with you the results of the PCR test printed on the letterhead of the laboratory. I don’t know how elsewhere, but at Sheremetyevo airport they also checked the application in my smartphone and demanded to show the paper, “Svetlana Vasilyeva told DW.
Airport coronavirus testing center
According to her, she has been vaccinated with both components of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. And this is recorded in the vaccination passport. At the same time, one of the main reasons for Svetlana Vasilyeva’s choice of a Russian vaccine, and not a Chinese or Kazakh one, was the hope that it would make it easier for her to visit relatives in Moscow and the Moscow region.
“There are a lot of people like me. Among my acquaintances, almost all of them were vaccinated with Sputnik. For myself, I decided that I would not be revaccinated with the Russian vaccine. the worst end is Sinopharm. They are at least WHO recognized, “- said the interlocutor DW.
Is there a political implication?
According to Kazbek Beisebayev, a public figure popular with the Kazakh media, who in the past held responsible posts in the structures of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the current slippage in the negotiation process between Russia and Kazakhstan on the mutual recognition of vaccination passports may have more than a technical reason.
In his commentary to DW, he did not rule out the political subtext of the long absence of results: “It seems to me that there is something that neither Russia nor Kazakhstan wants to talk about publicly. Something that is a stumbling block between the two countries.”
As for the opinion of the Russian Federation, no explanations about the reasons for the delay in the process of mutual recognition by Kazakhstan and Russia of vaccination certificates by Russian state officials or State Duma deputies have yet appeared in the public space. At the time of preparation of the material, representatives of the Russian side did not respond to DW’s request.
See also:
.